Reflections in a Broken Mirror
by Fritzi Rosier
Summary: What happens when the image one sees in the mirror isn't a familiar one? And does it effect where one stands on a battlefield? Draco Malfoy will have the unwanted chance to answer these questions.
1. Prologue

**Reflections In A Broken Mirror**

**Prologue**

Narcissa Black Malfoy's head was held at an elegant angle, chin lifted regally. Eyes impassive, carriage calm and graceful, her air of aristocratic grace was flawless.

Nothing was further from the truth.

Though her appearance was one without fault, her mind was awhirl with thoughts she would never expose to the light.

For as long as she had been able to remember, Narcissa Black Malfoy had come second to someone.

Bellatrix, with her sensuous features and curtain of dark tresses, was ever the first of the Black daughters. She knew her duties to her blood, marrying Rodolphus Lestrange, a fine young man. It was too bad they never had children. It was audacious of her, to join the Dark Lord. But it showed a desire to sustain the old ways that was admirable and uncommonly strong in one so young.

Andromeda, with her reckless smile and unseemly willfulness, caused trouble for its own sake. Careless with her beauty and thoughtless with her affections, she had tainted the blood of a noble line to produce a daughter with extraordinary abilities. It was really too bad the child was a half blood. Metamorphmagi were rare in the days of so much untoward mixing of blood. Such a fluke was not unheard of, but the infrequency of such happenings made Andromeda's coupling with a Muggleborn all the more glaring a transgression.

Then there was Narcissa. She was a pleasant girl, if a bit demure. She was always exceptionally polite, a true example of fine breeding. Yet something about her had always been a bit unusual. Perhaps being overshadowed by sisters like Bellatrix and Andromeda had something to do with it. Having two such forceful and contradictory personalities eclipsing hers had caused the girl to grow up uncommonly shy.

This was not to say that she didn't stand out in other ways. Undeniably, she was clever, though one would never draw that conclusion if only her unobtrusive nature were observed. Like her sisters, she was quite beautiful, though she did not possess Bella's dark good looks or Andromeda's wildflower prettiness. Her forget-me-not eyes and burnished flaxen hair were lovely against her lily-pale complexion, creating an ephemeral glow that—if one were fanciful enough—might be associated with nymphs or angels. Delicate, she was, and arresting.

It did not surprise anyone that Lucius Malfoy's head would be turned by the youngest of the Black daughters. A young governor of Hogwarts School and quite influential politically, he and Narcissa made a charming couple.

Their courtship, though, was not expected to last for very long. The sheer intensity of Lucius's personality simply could not be balanced with Narcissa's restrained manner. True, he did maintain a chilly reserve, but it served to highlight rather than mask an underlying temper that in never reaching the surface was all the more alarming. Things seemed destined end unpleasantly.

And yet . . .

It was not hard to see the genuine affection between the two, reserved though it was. This in itself was strange, for what place did love have in a marriage such as theirs—and marriage did indeed seem to be on the horizon for the pair. But love was an insubstantial thing to base a marriage on. Money, political influence, or even pure power were acceptable prerequisites, and if a comfortable sort of fondness came into the deal later on, all the better. In many eyes, love was the dominion of commoners and faerie tale princes.

Were not many princes of myth fair young men to whom lovely young women became pledged with glad hearts?

So began a strange sort of faerie tale.

For her part, Narcissa was an utterly unknown type of young woman to Lucius. Her lack of pretense and calm nature were vastly different from the coy flirtatious games that other young ladies participated in. Magically, she was one of most naturally gifted young women he had ever encountered.

Narcissa, in turn, enjoyed Lucius's dry—if dark—wit and considered him to be among the most intelligent men she knew. He was a remarkably talented wizard and had a passion for gaining knowledge. His need to learn and grow in personal ability was fairly astonishing, and Narcissa found it attractive that he sought constantly to improve himself.

In regard to physical attraction, it was present. The two were not the type to be caught up in amorous glances and showy displays; always the acted with the highest degree of self-possession, he, always a faultless gentleman and she ever the well-bred young lady. As to what transpired away from the eyes of others . . . well, it occurred _away_ from others did it not?

Little else need be said.

As the affection between the two became more distinct, tongues stopped wagging about the strangeness of their match and soon the banns were called.

Not long after this the rise of the Dark Lord cast them and a number of other young purebloods into suspicion. Tension in the wizarding community grew, putting cracks in the spun glass perfection of the Malfoy's pretty faerie tale life. Or more accurately, one large, jagged crack.

Narcissa had mixed feelings concerning Lucius's involvement with the Dark Lord.

She trusted her husband implicitly, believing that if he thought he was making the right decision, he was indeed correct. He was an intelligent man, and she loved him, so she chose not to stand in the way of something he was so passionate about. He would never restrict her in any endeavors she wished to pursue, and she afforded him the same courtesy.

The death of her cousin Regulus at the hands of his master caused her to rethink her earlier assumptions. It did not seem right to her that her young cousin meet an end such as that for merely deciding he no longer wanted to be a Death Eater. He was after all, little more than a boy. And thought she would have never dreamed to voice the words, a part of her still cared for her sister, fearing for Andromeda and her little girl, the niece she had never met. Her worry extended to even Bella, the elder sister she had so wholly envied and adored throughout her childhood and on into her adolescent years.

Mostly though, she feared for her husband, finding it more difficult each time to set her feelings aside when he would slip from their bed and don his cloak, the hood casting all his features into shadow but his eyes, which became the same cold inhuman silver as the mask held in his pale hand.

Lucius assured his young wife that there was less danger to him than she believed. True, Regulus's death was unfortunate. No one deserved to die that young. But it couldn't be denied that he had been attempting to back out of an important task. The punishment had been harsh, but decisive. The Dark Lord's methods were cruel at times, but his power was undeniable, and he was very obviously accomplishing quite a lot. The admiration in Lucius's voice was obvious.

To the woman standing before him, it was as if he had slapped her across her pale cheek.

In that moment, Narcissa was once again put second in line.

Failure was unacceptable to Lucius Malfoy.

This fact makes it easier to explain the change that came over him when his master was defeated.

No, that isn't quite correct. _Change_ is not a sufficient term for what took place.

Perhaps 'partial inner death' is more appropriate an expression.

A scar that was not his to carry—for he had been only a servant after all, had he not—had been placed on his soul, permanently coloring his demeanor. His dry wit turned into scathing cynicism. To another woman, this change—again, the inadequate expression—would have created a rift in her personality. But Narcissa Black Malfoy had had a lifetime of practice at being next in line to draw on. That, and a core of steel, were what enabled her to wrap her arms around the cold form she called her beloved and attempt to thaw that part of him that had been lost to her since he had first kissed the hem of the Dark Lord's robes.

As to the inquiry of the ministry, Lucius's claims of lost memory and an inability to disobey the criminal orders of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named were met with little opposition. Besides, there was little the ministry could say—he was a large source of the funding they used to repair the damage done during these dark times.

There was a bright spot amidst the adversities that had befallen the Malfoys.

One would naturally assume that a man so absorbed deeply in the service of a dark power, a man who had little time for his beloved wife would have a difficult time learning to love a child.

Natural assumptions have their uses, but they have a tendency to be incorrect at some of the most astonishing times.

From a very early age, it was patently obvious to the Malfoys that their son was alarmingly clever. Lucius wasted no time in developing this natural acumen, teaching his small son all that the child could absorb from the time he was old enough to sit at his father's knee in the vast library of the Malfoy manor. He was a patient teacher, but also a strict taskmaster. He instilled in the small boy his passion for the acquirement of knowledge and a desire to hone his abilities. For this, Lucius was rewarded with unbounded adoration, something he had no idea how to deal-with. It was not that he did not love Draco—_never_ could it be doubted that he loved his son—it was that he could not reconcile the failure he knew he was with this child's violent blind affection.

More than anything he wanted to be worthy of it, though he knew that was impossible. So he strove to make sure that his son would succeed where he had failed.

Draco craved his father's approval much in the manner that a junkie craves his next fix. Unlike any junkie, however, Draco never obtained the high he was looking for. The barest of stern acknowledgements were the most he ever received, and always—_always_—they were laced with astringent allusions to the need for improvement.

For Draco, it was much like being handed his favorite sweet after seeing it be dipped in salt.

Still, the boy threw himself relentlessly against the wall of his father's reserve with as much strength as he possessed, ignoring the psychic bruises he received. The hunger in his pale eyes never went away, though it was clear that Draco himself was unaware of what precisely it was he craved, having never fully experienced it.

Narcissa watched this interplay with a sort of sorrowful resignation. She had realized long ago that Draco lacked his parents' emotional reserve. Anything he felt showed on his face. Often times it showed in other ways as well. The vibration of small objects or the flickering of candles sometimes accompanied strong bursts of childish anger or frustration, and to a lesser extent joy and sorrow. This, while being a clear indication of strong magical aptitude, was utterly unacceptable. And so it became necessary to instill in Draco a sense of restraint.

It worked. There was no denying that fact.

But there were times when Narcissa wondered if they had gone too far. There were times when his feelings showed clearly on his face, but he denied them. Other times it seemed that her son was a creation of marble, with no soul to speak of.

Sitting in the courtroom, with its dim light from the few sconces affixed to the damp walls of ancient brick, the bleak realizations that crowded into Narcissa's head gained strength. Her husband was chained to the throne they had set him upon, his eyes carefully expressionless as he replied to Cornelius Fudge's accusations, sealing his damnation.

Lucius had assured her that this meant little, that Azkaban would do little to hold those who were faithful servants of the Dark Lord. Narcissa couldn't bring herself to believe his words, her once unshakeable belief in her beloved's words faltering.

She'd been placed second, and this time it was absolute. Whatever the final outcome of the events that were in motion, Narcissa had lost her place in Lucius's heart to nightmares made flesh.

She could have accepted it, would have acceded to it with a cracked and resigned heart, were it only herself that had once again been set aside. It was a part of her very nature. She didn't have the will to do otherwise. Not anymore. Slowly, she had allowed her inner steel to wear away, proving that perhaps it had not been steel at all, but something of lesser strength, less significant value.

But to place Draco, their _son—his_ son—after anything at all, was unforgivable. Draco was not someone who came second. It was not in his nature to be accepting of defeat. He would take down the sturdiest of fortresses with his hands alone and drive himself to a death of exhaustion rather than admit that the task took more strength than he possessed.

It was his father's legacy, that quality. The two were more alike than most could ever guess, and in some of the most surprising ways, from their dry, dark wit to their smooth, just accented diction when reading or speaking Latin.

In other things, they were more violently different than a shard of ice and a tongue of flame.

And in some things, she could see small hints of herself in her son. They were minor things, only noticeable it seemed if she looked out of the corner of her eye; the way he held his wand, the ruler straight nose, or his deft hand at quick, finely detailed sketches.

She didn't let these small things fool her. He was, and would ever remain, his father's son, and it shattered her heart that all of this was nothing to Lucius in comparison to even the smallest of his shadowed master's whims.

As they completed the pronouncement of Lucius's sentence, Narcissa found herself sending up a silent prayer to any powers that might listen that her son was, for all their similarities, made of a different sort of substance than those that had created him.


	2. The Things We Leave Behind

_**Chapter One **– The Things We Leave Behind_

_What has happened to it all?_

_Crazy some say_

_Where is the life that I recognize?_

_Gone away_

_Those grey eyes are cold and empty, like holes into nothing, a void so deep that there is no end to the fall if you were to slip at the edge. There is nothing behind them, no love, no hate, and no recognition. Suddenly they are not eyes at all, but one great sheet of ice or glass, reflecting nothing and everything. He steps closer, wanting to touch the pane of ice, to make an impression on it, to be visible in it and not insubstantial. He reaches out to touch its surface, feeling the cold numbing his fingertips. They are inches away, a breath from brushing the glacial surface. Just a breath . . ._

Draco bolted upright in bed, breathing heavily. The air in his room was thick, and for a moment, he was gripped by the irrational fear that he was going to be smothered. The back of his neck was damp with sweat and caused his hair to stick to it. He felt slippery and ill at ease. It was late August, and unnaturally hot. Draco rolled over onto his stomach, pushing the pillows away and laying flat on the mattress before flipping onto his back in restless agitation. Draco wasn't a sound sleeper by nature. He had crossed the line to becoming an insomniac quite a while back. The shadows under his eyes had all but taken up residence.

It was disturbing to be at home since father had been put in Azkaban. The house was always missing something when Lucius was gone—which had become quite often during the past few years—but now that the guarantee of his return did not exist, there was strangeness about the whole of the Malfoy manor itself, an emptiness that was only recognizable now that it was impossible to fill. It no longer had the feel of a real place; the Malfoy home was a skeleton and little more.

_He's gone._ The thought floated unbidden into Draco's mind. He'd been avoiding the it for quite a while. Feeling a number of painful emotions rising in him, he forced them down and to clear his mind, but found it impossible, adding to his constant, building frustration.

Without the distractions of classes, Quidditch, and the ten thousand other petty trials of school, Draco really had nothing to concentrate on, save the surreal events of recent weeks. He managed to stave off dark thoughts during daylight hours; immersing himself in the vast library his family had built up over centuries of larceny, pillaging, and more recent, legitimate purchases. Most days he spent a good deal of time flying, urging his broom to increasingly reckless heights in search of the perfect oblivion that accompanied the sensation of chill air dragging icy fingers over his skin and through his hair. He spent hours on his summer assignments, covering feet of parchment with spidery writing on extended essays that he wrote and rewrote.

Draco's near manic need to _do_ achieved the end he desired during the light of day. In the lonely darkness of his chamber late at night, the tale was a different one.

As a very small boy, Draco had been afflicted by nightmares. Night after night he was plagued by shadowy nameless fears that he was unable to recall upon waking. On one such occasion he had awakened in childish terror, gripped by the conviction that he was entirely alone in the sweeping halls and wide chambers of the Malfoy mansion. For an entire night he had sat bolt upright in bed, knees pulled to his chest and biting his lower lip, not moving even so much as to push the strands of ghostly hair from his wide eyes.

Exhausted though he often was after days of near-compulsive activity, Draco found himself staring up at the silvery black canopy of his bed, incapable of stopping the constant parade of dark thoughts that capered through his mind. Often he fell into periods of fitful slumber only to awaken at ungodly hours of the morning, his mind racing. He felt crazed and desperate; a child running through a snowstorm from rabid wolves woven of his own suppressed anguish, each of them with cold, expressionless grey eyes.

On the worst nights he lay staring into the middle distance, torn between tearing his chamber apart and curling up into a ball. It was like being three people at once.

One of the nastier results was Draco's increasingly short temper. On the rare occasion that he did speak to infrequent visitors, his words were clipped and tense. After one such incident, his mother had confronted him, her normally even voice strained and low. Draco had lashed out, his words derisive. A glimmer of hurt had made a fleeting appearance in her eyes, gone before it had truly formed.

Draco hated himself for it.

He didn't apologize.

Though neither of them spoke of Lucius or the trial, the subject hung heavily in the air between them. There were times when Narcissa, unaware of her son's scrutiny, would be possessed by an air of heartrending despair. Draco would catch the briefest glimpse of the agony his mother held behind a mask that seemed never to falter. Once, after returning from some unspecified errand of which he had been unaware, Draco had caught the sound of soft crying, the sound low and stifled. He had felt wretched over this, for he was sure that this hurt was a different hurt altogether than the now familiar pain of Lucius's absence.

Hell was not a place of fire, brimstone and lost souls. It was a large house full of buried emotions.

He couldn't stay at home much longer. It would leech away the last of his reserve and leave him on the edge of sanity, raw and bleeding.

Draco turned onto his side and pulled his knees up. Down stairs in some remote part of the house, a clock was chiming the hours. One . . .two . . .three . . .

Again, he would be all night awake.

Packing was by far the hardest part of the summer for Hermione. She never quite knew what to take with her, so she ended up putting all of the strangest things into her trunk and then taking them out, and so on in this vein for at least a day or so until none of the things she had originally planned to take were in her trunk and her room was a disaster. Moreover, each year it seemed that she took more with her. The entire procedure left her harassed and intolerably scattered. Letting out a harried snarl, she threw herself onto the floor next to her bed and began an ardent search for her copy of _One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi_, feeling steadily more put upon as she came across an increasing number of dust bunnies and socks in various states of cleanliness. Yet still she had no book.

The cause for Hermione's feelings of harassment was not based in her lack of packing prowess—though it _did_ play a part—but in her increasing awareness of the reality that her parents' house felt less like home with each year. Indeed, the very detail that even in her mind she referred to it as "her parent's house" caused her to feel as if she was betraying them—or more accurately, herself—in some inexplicable way. She had strived repeatedly to convince herself that this was all a part of growing up, of developing into a responsible adult.

This approach had done nothing to assuage the sensation that she was merely a well-liked visitor as she had stepped over the threshold of the grey brick house with red shutters the evening after she'd gotten home from King's Cross. Her parents had embraced her, fussed over how well she had done in her studies, how pretty she was growing to be, how mature she had become.

"Your hair's so long now dear!"

"Can't call you my 'little' girl anymore, can I? Quite the scholar you're getting to be."

Smiles, embraces, and all of the other trappings of parental affection had been showered upon her in such profusion she feared she would asphyxiate. Yet even with all of the commotion, it became clear that her parents had to make a conscious effort to work their daughter back into life at the Granger Home. They tried very hard to fit her back into their normal routine, taking time to try and engage her in activities they had once enjoyed as a family; even so that it was a bit awkward, almost as if they had forgotten how. Still, they tried. She loved them for it.

There were times when she wished she had not been so willfully independent and had instead bothered to enjoy that she had been given such loving parents. But somewhere along the way she had learned to need them less and less, and she couldn't go back to suddenly needing them desperately. They no longer had the supernatural power that all parents possessed to Make Everything Right.

No one did anymore.

For her part, Hermione found herself spending quite a lot of time at the cinema, at the library or really anywhere that was not the Granger home. On one such occasion she had even stumbled—quite literally, for she had not been paying attention—into a couple of girls she had attended school with before Hogwarts. She had gone a few places with them. Still, there hadn't been a real connection between herself and her old schoolmates save dusty memories that had been set aside along with jump ropes, swing sets and excited whispers of "Who do _you_ like?" behind cupped hands. There were so many aspects of her life she could not share with them, and she could not relate to their experiences. She had gradually let them assume that she was just quiet by nature, and no longer the talkative girl she had once been. It had been very easy to let herself fade quietly into the background and fall into a sort of routine, which—while not being exactly satisfying—kept her occupied.

It was becoming progressively more evident that Hermione had all but withdrawn fully from the Muggle world. Within the next two years she would take her N.E.W.T.S, graduate and be on her own in the magical world. By that time there would be nothing to tie her to the muggle world save a childhood and her parents. And somehow, in the face of everything that had taken place last year in the Department of Mysteries, they had taken second place to the immediacy of the Dark Lord's threat. She no longer had an anchor to the Muggle world.

No, that wasn't entirely true. She possessed the knowledge of how to use various appliances that presented problems to most non-Muggleborn members of the wizarding community. _Wonderful, _Hermione thought_. One of my great distinguishing characteristics is that I know how to use a toaster properly. Look out world—I can make Poptarts! _

Hermione wasn't the type to let her future come on her by surprise. She had begun to seriously consider what she would do after graduating from Hogwarts in her third year. Despite her confidence that she could carry out the occupation quite competently, she had never shared her friends' interest in becoming an Auror. She'd always thought she would end up as a teacher or a historian perhaps, some sort of quiet, logical position that would pay her nicely and send her home every night to a small but comfortable flat inhabited by a cat or two. Neat, intellectual, and utterly predictable—it reflected Hermione perfectly.

At least it _had_. But the reflection Hermione was seeing lately wasn't one she was altogether familiar with. She found herself staring at her mirror more closely these days, surprised to no longer see the plain bushy-haired girl that had stared back so often in the past.

She was somewhat troubled by the girl that looked back at her when she truly evaluated her likeness. The image that gazed at her from behind the glass was familiar yet foreign. There was the same bushy hair, still the color of fallen leaves, the same large brown eyes, same elfish nose and pleasant, if plain, mouth. But in it's longer state, the bushiness of her hair could be mistaken for thickness, perhaps seeming only a little wild as opposed to dreadfully unmanageable. Large though her eyes were, they were not quite so very wide and young as they had once been. And now that her front teeth weren't so appallingly outsized . . . there was no way to deny that it was a vast improvement from her once chipmunk-like state.

Taken separately, these details were not very obvious but merely slight inconsequential marks of time passing. Together they held more magnitude.

The most unsettling detail though, was the look that came over her face when she wasn't thinking of it—an expression that was an elegant blend weariness and antipathy, as if the world was wearing away at her.

Hermione remembered the Yule Ball. She'd caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror as she hurried to meet Viktor. A stranger had stared back then, and a very pretty stranger at that, but that had been all that mattered right then. Afterward she had become Hermione again; dependable, bookish, and predictable.

This mirror girl wasn't a stranger exactly, and for her part, Hermione had to admit that she didn't really feel like the same person. The quiet yet productive existence she had once anticipated was no longer an option. Any possibility of such a life had been obliterated with Voldemort's return to power. Muggles and Muggleborns were the first on his agenda, and Hermione fit the bill flawlessly.

Without the demands of school and her studies consuming her time, Hermione found herself locked inside her head for rather longer than she liked. It couldn't be healthy to spend so much of her time brooding, she knew. She also didn't happen to be very good at brooding, since she inevitably became frustrated that it did not change the situation, only left her more restless. But with the troubles her friends had been having, the Ministry of Magic's recent acknowledgement of Voldemort's return, and her recent revelations regarding herself, Hermione's mind was reeling. Since the handbook on the basics of preparedness and defense had arrived from the ministry, she had been worried out of her mind about Harry and Ron. The handbook had been all but useless—the vague generalized information wasn't worth the paper it was printed on—and served as a reminder of the ineffectiveness of the Ministry of Magic's efforts to protect those it governed. This wasn't a real change in the grand scheme of things. She still felt less secure because of it.

And yet, when the Weasley's had invited her to come and stay with them for the rest of the summer, she'd said no, writing the Weasley's and telling them she wanted to spend time with her parents. As terribly as she missed her friends, she didn't want to leave her parents. Part of her feared that she would leave and never see them again, that they'd be involved in a horrible accident or some other unspeakable disaster and she would miss what little time she had been given with them. Another part of her knew very firmly that this would be the last summer she spent in her parents' home. After this, she wouldn't be coming back to stay for nearly so long. She simply didn't belong there anymore. It wasn't a frightening thought, and though she was a little sad about it, it was more an abstract regret than an actual emotion. She just knew. So she stayed, making more of an effort to be her parents' daughter for the little time remaining of the holidays, instead of the polite guest she had been functioning as for weeks.

Harry hadn't gone to stay with the Weasley's either. This didn't surprise her as much as it would have a few months before, when she had believed Harry's relatives to be one of the ugliest things in his life. Now she knew better.

He had been a haunted soul since Sirius's death. Hermione wished that she had bothered to pay attention to Harry's withdrawal into himself when it had first begun back at the end of their fourth year following Cedric's death.

Harry had been the only one able to attend the memorial service for Sirius—it had been a family only affair, save for a few notable exceptions such as his godson and of course Professor Dumbledore. Ron and Ginny had written her the day following, telling her Lupin that had attended as well, though he had left before the service had ended. Tonks had been by the Burrow afterward, looking drained, with her short hair black and her eyes the same grey that Sirius's had been, pale and fathomless and worn. She hadn't stayed long, and had seemed anxious to leave, according to the letter, remaining only long enough to leave a message for Mr. Weasley and nod a brief hello to each them.

Hermione wondered who of the Black family had attended the memorial. For all of the faults he possessed, Sirius had deserved a send off that had consisted of more than a half dozen people, and wondered why attendance had been so limited. She had heard nothing from Harry about the service, and knew better than to ask him about it, as much as she wished she could, if only to offer a willing listener.

Wishes were worthless in the face of reality.

It was another sign of how much Hermione had changed in a short while; not so long ago she had thought of herself as an optimist.

Shaking her head as though it would redirect her train of thought, Hermione sat back on her knees, swept aside the large pile of newly unearthed socks—some she hadn't seen since nearly three years—and wracked her brain. Her eyes raked the room again before alighting on the object of her search. There on the topmost shelf if her books case, sitting innocently next to a worn runic dictionary and something that may have been a cat toy at one time, was a battered copy _One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi_, held together in places by copious amounts of Spellotape. She tossed both books into her trunk, and after a moment, tossed the cat toy into trunk as well, wondering for a moment if Crookshanks was still rooting through the flowerbed, but not having the heart to rescue her mother's tulips from the perils of feline recreation, she didn't dwell on it.

With a final inventory of the trunk's contents and a sweeping glance around her room, Hermione snapped the lid of her trunk into place and locked it before grabbing her wand, her Hogwarts letter and her purse from their places on her bed. Pushing her unruly hair back from her face, she took a deep breath then let it out slowly, waiting for the pang of unhappiness that always accompanied her leaving for Hogwarts. Not surprisingly, it did not manifest itself. Feeling decidedly off-center, Hermione pulled her trunk into the hallway and closed the door to her room shut with a decisive _click_.


	3. Things That Go Wrong in the Night

_**Chapter Two** – Things That Go Wrong in the Night_

_Lock yourself inside maybe you'll find peace tonight_

_Don't run away from what you don't know_

_The things you don't show the secrets that you know_

_Keep them hid in a good hiding place_

_While you're sleeping I know you're dreaming_

_Of a good hiding place_

Draco was in the library when the letter arrived, a thin, leather-bound text open on his knee. Early as it was—seven o'clock of all unholy hours—Draco had been awake for hours, finally abandoning his bed and the possibility of sleep and making his way through the silent house to the library. After taking a book at random from the shelf, he had settled himself into a chair. The book had proved to be rather interesting, and Draco was genuinely absorbed by a particular passage when he was interrupted by a click and then the sound of sharp talons being dragged down glass that never failed to set his teeth on edge.

Turning toward the window, Draco saw a large owl sitting placidly upon the window ledge, a neatly folded square of parchment clipped in its beak. He recognized the bird; a great horned of daunting proportions. He gave an inward sigh as he crossed the room and opened the window. The creature calmly stepped over the sill, depositing her message upon it before gracefully taking flight again. Clearly she had not expected a reply.

The letter was short, written in looping script:

_Knockturn Alley today, just in case you forgot. Six o'clock, outside Borgin and Burkes. See you._

_Pansy_

_PS—expect a late night._

Draco felt an irked smile tug at his lips. She would decide to be annoyingly ambiguous when he wasn't in the mood for it, leaving out her customary painfully detailed itinerary. Of course, that was just how Pansy was. This was the same girl who had taught her owl to drag its exceedingly sharp talons down any surface that would make a cringe-worthy noise. Small vexations were her hobby.

Draco was not looking forward to an evening in Knockturn Alley. There would likely be a good number of Hogwarts students skulking around that part of London tonight, looking for a final thrill before school began. Not so very long ago, Draco would have found a night of hedonistic self-indulgence quite attractive. On some level he still might have, had it not been for the strong aversion to other living beings that he had developed recently.

Draco stood and walked over to the shelf from which he had taken the book he had been reading, replacing it, before he thought better of it and pulled it back out. He glanced at Pansy's brief letter before tossing it into the waste bin.

He'd be going.

"Draco!"

The young man looked up from the hand of glory he'd examining at the sound of his name. He glanced down at his watch; 6:35. He straightened, brushing imaginary dust from one of his shirt's rolled cuffs and turned.

There was something in the way that Pansy said his name that made him feel like retching. She drew him into an impulsive embrace, which he halfheartedly returned, feeling the tension that she was trying to hide. She stepped back, revealing a smile that was slightly strained. He could hear every unspoken question she wanted to ask him better than if she were saying them into his ear.

They left the shop, walking slowly up the dingy street, both of then uncharacteristically quiet, Pansy making the infrequent remark at times. The awkwardness between them was thick like cigar smoke in the air. Neither of them said anything about the emptiness of the London Underground. In other years there had been a good number of their housemates roaming Knockturn Alley in search of pre-term disorder of any sort, as well as adult denizens of the murky lane. The desertion of the gloomy alley was disquieting; while it was by no means ever a crowded place, it served as a reminder of just how many of the Alley's former denizens had decided that it was hazardous to show their faces.

"How was your summer?" Pansy asked in a valiant attempt at normality. Her underlying query was suspended in the air

_Are you all right?_

"Eh," Draco replied noncommittally, though his fist clenched.

_What do you think ?_

They were silent for a while. Then—

"Sorry about being so late. You know me."

_I hope my abominable sense of time hasn't damaged your fragile emotional state._

"I'm used to it, remember?"

_Don't flatter yourself._

"We missed you over the summer. Vince and Greg visited for a while. It was so quiet, without—," She stopped herself here, biting her lip. "Well, we had a good time really." She lapsed into silence.

Her bright, nervous tone was doing little for Draco's temperament. As long as he could ignore all thoughts of his father and the trial he was fine. This had been very hard to do while at home in Wiltshire. But difficult was not the same as impossible, which was what Pansy's vague comments and too cheery affectations were making it at the moment. This was not the snarky, laughing girl he knew. She was too careful, sidestepping all of the questions she normally would have thrust at him without an ounce of tact, which would have been easier to deal with than this excessive caution. Draco was divided between wanting her to question him relentlessly and his strong aversion to speaking—even thinking—of his father. It would be a relief to concede to his sorry state of being, but that required Draco's acknowledging that he wasn't all right, and he was doing nothing of the sort, especially to Pansy. He had no desire to be subjected to her brand of sympathy.

They were passing the grimy window of a junk shop when Pansy let out an excited shout and ran toward a figure that stood in the shadowed doorway, effectively cutting thought the tension suspended between them. Draco followed her, feeling a genuine spark of happiness.

"Blaise!" Pansy shrieked, throwing her arms around the young man's neck in an irritatingly girlish manner. She stepped back, and her look rearranged itself rapidly into one of righteous anger. "Why didn't you write me all summer, you priggish git?" She demanded, smacking him hard on the upper arm.

"Because you are a devil woman, as you have just demonstrated," he stated in dignified tones, rubbing the spot where Pansy had hit him. Draco knew this was not solely for the sake of theatrics—although Blaise was a master at them. Pansy hit hard—she'd leave bruises if given the chance.

A rakish grin broke over the young man's face, and cocking an eyebrow at Draco, added in a lascivious voice "Thought I've heard that demon chicks do have some _extremely_ redeeming qualities." Detaching himself from the shadows, he managed to dodge another blow from Pansy. Grinning, he pulled Draco into a rough, quick hug scented with incense, spearmint gum, cigarettes and candle wax.

Blaise Zabini painted an utterly disreputable picture. He wore loose Muggle jeans—torn and faded from long abuse—whose frayed hems fell over the tops of a pair of large dragon hide boots that bore a strong resemblance to certain types of algae, dark green and shining as if wet. A black, outsized jacket hung to the middle of his thighs, with sleeves that fell almost past his fingertips. Suspicious looking scorch marks doted this garment, along with dusty patches on his jeans that looked like chalk or masonry dust. Clearly he had been up to no good very recently.

"So my esteemed comrades," he intoned in his grandiose manner. "Where shall we be off to? Sun fall is less than a mere hour away, but until darkness descends there is little that _I_ can show you that will be of interest." At these last words his voice took on air of mystery.

"Shut up, Blaise," Pansy snapped, but she was smiling. Another of Blaise's tricks. He always seemed to put people in the mood he wished them to be in. Draco's own disposition had lightened.

The three wandered into the junk shop. The inside was jumbled and the thin, tinny sound of an old Weird Sisters' song came from a wireless sitting on the counter turned down too low to be heard properly. Pansy began sifting through the cluttered array of objects, some obviously rubbish, others with their worth hidden deceptively behind layers of dust and tarnish. Draco leaned against the wall, staring into the middle distance. Blaise, who had struck up a conversation with the youngish wizard behind the counter, looked over at his friend, brows drawing together in puzzlement.

"Tha one a friend of yers?" asked wizard, jerking his chin in Draco's direction. He was of middling height, with short brown hair and a scruffy, unshaven look about him.

"Mhmm," Blaise mumbled, his mind not quite back on the conversation.

The other man nodded. " 'E any relation to the Malfoy family?"

"What would it mean to you if he was?" Blaise asked, his tone still conversational. Even so, his guard raised a fraction. The wizard at the counter was an acquaintance of sorts, but Blaise had not forgotten to the type of person he was speaking. Volunteering information about his friends was not something he considered at all judicious in the given situation, no matter how insignificant the facts seemed.

" 'E's a dead ringer for Lucius Malfoy," stated the other wizard easily, ignoring the wary nature of Blaise's response. " 'E done had 'is face plastered all o'er half the papes in Europe for the longest time." The man produced a fairly yellowed copy of the Daily Prophet from a messy stack of parchments atop the counter and handed it to the young wizard before him.

Blaise took the paper, unfolding it to reveal a picture of Lucius Malfoy, his robes tatty and dusty, hair lank and skin wan. His eyes were the color of cement and just as empty of humanity. And even with that, he was still an almost perfect match to the face of the figure leaning against the far wall of the shop

Impossible thought it had seemed back at the end of school, Blaise had all but forgotten about the trial over the summer. This explained Draco's little anti-social act. Blaise knew that there was no way in hell Draco would be caught dead leaning against the wall of a grotty junk shop and looking for all the world as if he were a sullen, lost ten-year-old if he was in his normal state of mind—more likely he'd make caustic comments on how many viruses could be contracted from the environment. It was disturbing and unnatural to see him in his current state.

Blaise handed the paper back. "Thanks, Flynn. I didn't know about it." His words came out more softly than he intended

"You of all people, not knowin' somthin'. Losin' yer touch, boyo."

_So it would seem_, thought Blaise. He glanced down at his watch. They'd been in the shop quite a while. Pansy had gone to stand over by Draco, making a gutsy effort to draw Draco out of his head and back toward humanity. She was losing the battle, as it seemed she _had_ been for a good while before Blaise had met them today. He turned back to Flynn.

"I'll be off if you don't have anything else for me,'' he said, a smallish question in his voice.

"Nothin' for yeh at the moment. Should be getting' a few things in that might interest yeh round Samhain." He seemed to think for a moment, eyeing Blaise shrewdly. "Yeh should really consider yerself the lucky one; it's a rare privilege to get forewarnin' 'bout what comes into this place. My boss knew I was side dealin' with a school kid, he'd shit pixies."

"Then don't let him find out. I already get charged an extra ten percent on most of the stuff, and I know it goes into your pocket, Flynn." Blaise's sloe eyes danced merrily at the look of vexation on the other man's face. "Send anything you have to the shop in Hogsmeade like usual." He straightened and walked over to Draco and Pansy.

"Until Samhain then," Flynn said after him, turning up the wireless as the door shut behind the three.

As she sat at a table in the Leaky Cauldron, swirling the last of her pumpkin juice slowly in the bottom of her goblet, a small, lazy smile touched Hermione's lips. After a day spent running from store to store to pick up books, quills, parchment and robes, she was content and exhausted. Taking a small sip from her near empty goblet, she turned her attention back to Ginny, who was animatedly telling a story that had Ron laughing hard enough to fall out of his seat and even managed to put a grin on Harry's face.

"—was positively green! Everyone in the shop was trying not to laugh and Madam Malkin looked fit to explode, shrieking about how she'd never had a more incompetent apprentice. It was terrible!" She looked at Hermione. "You saw how her hair was flying everywhere, looking like some crazed hag."

"The poor sod was going to burst into tears," Hermione replied, feeling a pang of sympathy for the hopeless young man. "Honestly, you shouldn't tease him. It's not his fault he was born uncoordinated." She paused. "And entirely inept, " she added after a moments thought. She was thankful the conversation had finally turned away from talk of broomsticks and bludgers.

The whole day had been like this; marvelously relaxed. Hermione had found herself feeling normal—or at least her interpretation of the term—for the first time in months.

Things she usually found the slightest bit irritating, like Ginny's incessant talk of nothing but Hogwarts' male population and Ron's over reactions, were dear to her. She was startled by how much she had missed them, had missed the feeling of being surrounded by the aura of magic. It was almost a scent, or warmth in the air that signified the presence of unconscious bits of hearthcraft and small charms that went unnoticed by wizards who were immersed in them every day.

The close heat that is unique to large groups of people in small places was lulling Hermione's senses, slowly dulling them. Her friends' conversation was melting into the clatter of utensils and other snatches of dialogue from here and there. Hermione allowed her head to tip so that it rested on her hand, her elbow atop the table. She studied the faces around her, diverse and unfamiliar to her, yet common to the part of her mind that saw them not as strangers, but as fellow magic users, members of same world she was a part of.

Hermione turned her attention to the faces around the table, all of them comfortable and familiar, faces she had memorized long ago. Harry, his usually serious eyes for the moment relaxed, a deep emerald behind round glasses. In the dim gold light, caught in a rare moment of tranquility, his pale skin and thin face lessened in severity, and the red lights in his messy dark hair were visible. She thought that maybe she could just see how he might be called good-looking. When Harry finally did lose that pinched, overly sharp look, he would be striking.

The once doe-like eyes of Ginny Weasley were glittering with good-humor, no longer overwhelming her pretty face. The bridge of her pert nose was dusted lightly with freckles, and her formerly nervous smile was now open and bright. Deep red hair hung round her face and over her shoulders, lending her a look of wholesome prettiness that was belied by the sharp wit and wicked humor that ran beneath the deceptive exterior.

Across the table from Hermione, Ron's short hair blazed in fiery profusion. His face was somewhat attractive after a fashion, now that he had finally grown into his features. His long nose and straight jaw were well shaped, and his face, naturally thin, was freckled liberally. His eyes, a shade that resembled the faded blue of the oldest pair of jeans she owned, plainly showed every emotion he felt.

Belatedly, behind drooping eyelids, Hermione realized that those eyes were staring back into hers. She blinked and then smiled self-consciously, attempting to stifle a yawn and failing. Ron's ears reddened fractionally, and he quickly turned his gaze elsewhere.

Hermione didn't pretend not to notice Ron's minor infatuation. It had reached its zenith in their fourth year. She attributed this to his surprise at her involvement with Viktor.

Hermione remembered standing in the kitchen one summer day, half listening to the discussion her mother and a family friend were having. The subject of their conversation wasn't anyone Hermione knew, but as she had been leaving the kitchen, she caught a snatch of their words.

"_Well, anything that's utterly unattainable becomes utterly desirable, doesn't it?"_

Hermione had been thirteen at the time. She hadn't understood every nuance of the words then, but they had stuck in her mind nonetheless. She thought she understood a little better now.

Ron's crush hadn't died away altogether, but Hermione had noted its ebb. It was unsurprising; the only time he seemed to show any real spark of interest were at times when she was writing to Viktor. If she admitted it to herself, there had been one small voice in the back of her mind that had said '_Awww_'disappointedly at the fact. But the other thousand voices that inhabited her head had been chattering perfectly logically about the idiocy of feelings based on hormonal impulses, evils to be thwarted and most importantly about assignments that were due and that she was perfectly happy and did not need a boyfriend to verify who she was, thank you very much.

Still . . .

"—rmione . . . Hermione!" said a voice, drawing her from her drowsy musings. Harry was smiling at her from his side of the table as she yawned and blinked repeatedly, willing herself awake.

"Hunh?" she answered rather dumbly.

"You were about ready to drop out of your chair," Harry supplied, trying to suppress a yawn himself. Ginny's eyes were beginning to glaze just the least bit. Ron seemed to be reasonably awake, though Hermione wondered how. She looked at her watch. They'd been in the Leaky Cauldron's parlor for over two hours, talking. At first it had felt a little strange, everyone a little desperate to be kind and friendly. But the discussion had steered itself toward subjects that dispelled the tension they felt. Hermione had begun to zone out when the direction of the conversation had turned toward Quidditch.

It was getting late, and Hermione was beginning to feel the tug of sleep very strongly, but something was nagging at her. She felt quite strongly that she had forgotten something. She went through her mental list checking off items, but there was nothing she could pinpoint as missing. They'd gone to nearly every store on Diagon Alley that day, including Fred and George's new shop, which had been full of Hogwarts students looking for as many ways to get into trouble as were humanly—and in some cases inhumanly—possible. For all the trouble the two had caused, they were shrewd businessmen and creative inventors besides. Hermione had been tempted to buy an item or two, but had scolded herself at the thought, reminding herself she'd most likely have to deal with enough of them as a prefect this year to stave off any wants she may have harbored. Still, their line of fireworks continued to draw her eyes.

The four made their way up the stairs to their rooms, Ron and Harry to the room they were sharing and herself and Ginny to their own. The persistent sense of having forgotten something weighed on her mind as she flopped down on large bed. Ginny was changing into her pajamas, which consisted of a pair of Charlie's old boxers and a bright purple Weird Sisters t-shirt with a moving picture of Kirly Duke playing his guitar with the intensity of one possessed, hair flying. Hermione got up off the bed, the sensation of having forgotten something still nagging at her as she dug through her trunk to find her pajamas. It was probably nothing, just nerves and—

"Ginny! Did we ever go back to Flourish and Blotts?" Hermione asked, searching through her things as if to make the object of her search appear out of sheer force of will.

Ginny's brows knitted, with a look that clearly said she knew they hadn't but was pretending to try and remember the event so as to suspend the inevitable outburst from Hermione. "I knew I forgot something! And I need that book for Arithmancy this year. If I don't have it I might as well just tell Professor Vector that I'm dropping the class because there'll be no point in taking it if I'm ill prepared and—,"

"Hermione!" Ginny snapped, effectively ending her small bout of hysterics. "You can just get it in the morning. This isn't all that serious." Ginny's voice was even and reassuring, but it did not dispel Hermione's fears of impending academic doom.

"I told the clerk I'd be back in an hour or so! It's been at _least_ four hours and they might put it back in stock, and then it would take forever for them to find it tomorrow and we'd be late. I _have _to go pick it up now."

"No, Hermione, you don't. It's past ten, and there are all sorts of freaks and nutters out on Diagon Alley after dark. There actually quite a few of them out during the day," she added as an after thought, pulling a brush through he thick hair.

"I know. Which is why you have to come with me," Hermione stated matter-of-factly, picking up her purse and casting a meaningful look at Ginny.

"Okay, sure, because I'm going out in a pair of hand-me-down shorts that barely qualify as decent. Yes, I think that'll keep the nutters away _quite_ nicely."

She had a good point. "I'll go ask the boys," Hermione said, crossing the hall and pounding on the door. Harry opened it, running a hand through his hair and looking decidedly weary. Hermione bit her lip.

"I-know-it's-late-and-you-must-be-tired-but-I-left-an-extremely-important-book-at-Flourish-and-Blotts-and-if-I-don't-have-it-for-Arithmancy-I'm-sunk-so-if-you're-not-too-beat it-would-mean-so-very-much-to-me-if-you-went-with-me-to-go-pick-it-up." All of this came out in one breath and decidedly confused, leaving Harry staring at her in a rather bewildered way. "Please go with me," she added for good measure, a chagrinned smile on her face.

"Just let me put on some shoes," Harry replied, trying not to yawn in her face as he turned back to the room. Ron was leaning over his open trunk. His shirt had slid up a bit, revealing a small patch of pale skin. _It's one thing to have freckles, but that's just a bit much_, thought Hermione, trying not to stare. Ron turned.

"Oh, hey Hermione," he said, straightening. "What're you doing here? You looked exhausted downstairs."

"I forgot a really important book. Harry said he'd go with me to pick it up as soon as he put on his shoes."

Ron reached up and scratched the back of his neck. "I've still got mine on. I can go," he said. Was it her imagination, or did Ron sound a little nervous? "If you want me to," he added quickly.

"Sure, let's go. I just need to get there quickly."

"Hey, Harry. I'll go mate, don't bother," Ron said to Harry, who was in the middle of tying one of his trainers. He nodded tiredly and gave a half wave before loosening his shoelaces.

Hermione hurried down the stairs and out the back door of the Leaky Cauldron, counting the bricks over the dustbins—three up, two across—and jabbed one with her wand. She walked briskly, praying that Flourish and Blott's was still open this late. She jogged up to the door as it came into view. Relief flooded her as she saw that there was still a light in the window. She hastened through the door. The young clerk behind the counter looked up from the book he was reading and smiled at her warmly, tapping the cover of a thick tome that sat beside him.

"I was beginning to think you'd forgotten. The thing was as bit of a pain to find, but we had a few left in stock. Eleven galleons, four sickles," he said, taking the coins from Hermione and putting the heavy book in a back before he passed it over the counter to her. With a mild half smile, he nodded toward Ron, who was standing a little to her left. "So what're you two doin' out so late? Other that retrieving forgotten textbooks," he added seriously and flashed a meaningful look at Ron, who blushed a furious shade of red.

"No, she's not—er, I mean— we aren't—,"Ron stammered awkwardly.

"We're just friends," Hermione finished for him. The clerk's smile became arch, and Hermione stared at the countertop, knowing her cheeks were a dull scarlet. She and Ginny had been discussing the young man earlier, both of them agreeing that he was particularly good-looking. He'd graduated Hogwarts two years prior, according to Ginny. Hermione wondered how she had managed to notice him, when she had been so busy being head over heels for Harry during her third year.

"Not as lucky as I thought you were mate," he said to Ron, whose face was still the color of a strawberry. Hermione was becoming increasingly self-conscious.

"Thank you for holding the book for me,' she said politely, before tuning and walking toward the door, which Ron was holding open for her.

The clerk let out a low whistle as he watched the girl exit the shop, noting that her long hair swayed with the same grace that the hem of her pleated skirt did when it brushed the backs of her thighs. _They don't make 'em like that often_, he thought, turning back to his book.

Ron and Hermione walked back to the Leaky Cauldron slowly. It was nice outside, and despite her recent embarrassment, she was feeling so relieved that she quickly forgot and walked up the cobbled street with a smallish smile on her face. She'd be starting school again in a day; in less than twenty-four hours she'd be able to use magic again. After a summer of tense restless waiting she was even more eager than usual to return to school. It was more than her anxieties about Voldemort and her friends; part of her was reawakening, and she was feeling almost giddy with it. It had never been like this before. Academics were Hermione's passion, but this was near desperation. It was the safety and familiarity of Hogwarts that she wanted back so very badly, and now that it was on the horizon, she could feel things lifting on her shoulders she hadn't even realized were there; it left her feeling unbalanced.

She turned to Ron, who had noticed the change in Hermione's demeanor. He smiled at her nervously, the light of the streetlamps making his hair look like flame. The air was warm and close in that late summer way that slows time to a lazy drag. Without really thinking, Hermione blurted out what she had been on her mind for so long.

"I didn't realized how strange it would feel to spend an entire summer with my parents again and not spend it with all of you," Hermione said, her words coming out in an unfamiliar voice. "That worthless Ministry pamphlet, it— it made me realize . . . what it must be like for people who had to live through it when it happened the first time."

"Mum tossed the thing the same day it arrived. Said that it was senseless to have it around when even me and Gin knew that it was full of sugar-coated rubbish." Ron attempted a half smile, but it didn't look right, almost like he had forgotten how a little. The mention of Mrs. Weasley brought a visible change to his expression, and it was not for the better.

"Now that everyone knows that Voldemort's back, it feels as if we're in more danger. Since the battle at the department of Mysteries, nothing's in the dark anymore. I always thought that when the world believed Harry, that that was the last step, and then the proper authorities could take over. But the proper authorities . . . they aren't doing much of a job of getting things right, are they?"

"There is the Order," Ron said, though he didn't sound as reassuring as he was trying to. "And well, Dad says that one of the big difference is that people _know_ what's going on, so it isn't like we're fighting without _any_ advantages. At least we know what to look for " He shrugged. "Things are bad, but the world isn't going to end."

Hermione nodded, not wanting to admit that all of this was true in theory, but in actuality not as much of a comfort to her as it should be. She'd once felt so confident in the assurance of 'good over evil'; never doubting that Voldemort would be defeated and the war would end. But blind faith was no longer an option to her now that she'd had her eyes opened to the reality that the efforts the magical community were making might not be enough.

Despite her sensibilities about city streets at night and the recent direction of her thoughts, Hermione found the late summer heat calming her senses. It was hard to be tense all the time; the human mind wasn't built for it. Eventually one adapts. After saying some of the things she had been thinking for nearly two months, the pressure of their constant whirling in her mind had lessened considerably.

They were nearing the Leaky Cauldron. Hermione realized that they had stopped walking. They were standing beneath a streetlamp, the circle of light gilding the cobblestones and shining on them like a spotlight. They had been walking companionably close—their shoulders just touching every few steps—and remained so as they stood halted in the patch of illumination on the ground. The two stood facing each other.

"Hermione, I—er—missed you a lot this summer." Ron's ears reddened considerably as he said this, and Hermione noticed a look of . . .determination . . . apprehension, perhaps? enter his eyes. Hermione smiled almost distractedly. She couldn't put her finger on the change that taken place at some point between here and the bookshop, but it was becoming apparent that something had shifted.

"I missed you too, Ron," she replied. Had he meant that in the way she thought? _That's impossible_, she scolded herself. _This is Ron. He yells and complains, but he never acts in situations like this._

She still half believed this as he leaned toward her, a hand on her shoulder. Their eyes met, and stayed locked in that moment of hesitation even as Hermione tilted her face to him. Then tentatively, as if they weren't entirely sure of what they should do, their lips touched gently.

It was a soft kiss, chaste and awkward. Their lips were dry and hesitant, and it was over very quickly. Still, when their mouths parted from this light touch, their faces remained close together. Hermione's face felt fiery, though if it were due to a blush, heat from Ron's skin, or the warmth of late summer air, she didn't know. Their eyes were still locked; tension was almost a tangible force between them. Impulsively, almost as thanks, Hermione leaned close to Ron, placing a light kiss on his cheek even as he began to turn his head to kiss her again. Her lips ended up bumping lightly against his jaw.

She stepped back, and somehow they were holding hands as they walked, which was rather nice, since his hand was larger than hers and it didn't really matter all that much that it was just a little too warm.

They walked back to the Leaky Cauldron in silence. As they made their way up the stairs and to their rooms, Ron smiling at her nervously, Hermione could feel butterflies fluttering in her stomach. This would have been a natural reaction, she supposed, had they been the pretty, well-behaved butterflies that simpering romance authors talked about, and the not steel-winged demon butterflies that were making her feel as if she were close to panic. She slipped into her and Ginny's room as quietly as possible, and was relieved to see that Ginny was already asleep.

_This is absurd. I am not_ _close to panic, I'm merely . . . over stimulated. The stress of a— a less-than-typical summer and school starting soon are just getting to me, _she reasoned with herself as she changed into her pajamas_. Ron is a dear friend, and a wonderful boy and the idea of him finally showing interest in me openly is a little—unexpected. _

**_But you've had a bit of a fancy for Ron for a long time, _**a sly voice in her head whispered sweetly**_. Shouldn't you be jumping for joy right now? Or at _least_ a little happy?_**

_I _am_ happy, _she mentally protested, easing carefully onto the comfortable mattress so as not to wake Ginny, who was mumbling something in her sleep that sounded suspiciously like "closer Dean" and smiling faintly.

_It's just strange because we're friends and we've known each other since we were eleven. It'll take some getting used to, but things _will_ work out in the end. _This last thought was firm, as if she were trying to convince a skeptical audience

**_Oh? _**said the wicked little voice in its deviously dulcet tones.**_ Well, if you think so. Arguing with yourself won't make anything more or less true._**

Hermione turned onto her side, letting the fatigue that had gripped her earlier flood her once more. Through the open window the sounds of night slipped in and lulled the girl to sleep. But even on the edge of sleep, her mind wandered again to the strange kiss under the streetlamp. There had been something missing from it, but her tired mind was too drained to recognize what it was.

The pulse of dance music was overpowering, a heartbeat as heard from inside one's own chest. Enchanted lights flashed: strobes in acid greens and brilliant violets, electric blues and cherry scarlets that left crazy after images dancing before the eyes.

Young wizards and witches were crowded onto the club's dance floor, most with their hair in wild styles and shades, some in robes tighter than sin, others torn near to shreds. Others wore muggle outfits whose main characteristics were 'black', 'tight', and 'shimmering'. To Draco, the entire thing was garish and decadent, like a masquerade thrown by pixies and vagrants. He felt decidedly out of place in the oxford shirt and black trousers, though with his shirtsleeves rolled up and un-tucked over plain black trousers, he had felt almost too casual. Unlike many Pureblood families, the Malfoys had known very well how to dress like muggles. Although it seemed hypocritical it was actually a very simple, very old part of the family's tradition: no matter what the situation, a Malfoy was never anything other than well dressed and was never ever out of place. Appearances were infinitely important. Still he felt ill at ease.

Blaise and Pansy did not have the same difficulty adjusting to this atmosphere. Pansy had taken care to show off all of her best assets, her blouse a good bit tighter than it had been earlier—no doubt thanks to a shrinking charm—and her cobalt eyes, easily her best feature in a face that wasn't quite lovely, were rimmed with kohl. Blaise seemed to have taken a similar approach, and though one could never be sure that it was more than just his thick lashes, Draco wouldn't put it past Blaise to wear eye makeup. He had taken off his jacket, revealing a t-shirt bearing the blazon "I Trip Cripples". Both of Draco's companions looked to eager to join the dancers on the floor.

The three ordered drinks and found a table off to one side. Blaise quickly caught the eye of a black-haired witch in low-cut robes and brash amounts of cosmetics. The two were having an animated conversation, leaving Pansy to sit next to Draco, her foot bouncing as she took a sip of her drink and stared out at the dance floor with a wistful look on her face. After a few minutes of this, during which she glanced at him repeatedly with growing impatience, she cracked. Standing up she turned Draco, who had been doing a superb job of ignoring her presence.

"Enough of this. I tried to get you to talk, you wouldn't. But you sit here and act like I'm not worth the dust on your boots, and I've bloody had it." She planted a hand on her hip, glaring at him, a skill she had perfected over five years of being Slytherin. "You have two choices." Her expression was an artful blend of menace and desperation. "You can tell me what's turned you into such a bloody bastard, or you can get up off your arse and dance with me."

In a quick, graceful movement, Draco downed the last of his fire whiskey and stood, flicking a few strands of hair from his eyes in an arrogant, eloquent manner. He took her hand and led her on to the center of the floor, a dangerous smile on his face in reaction to Pansy's look of surprise.

The music had changed from the throb of dance, morphing into a different beast altogether. Twin guitars wailed in banshee fashion before the dark fluid melody began, pulling even the most apathetic of souls under its influence. The dance floor was suddenly crowded, couples dancing so near to one another that not even light could come between them as a low tormented baritone softly described an awful passion.

The scene was a jaded rendition of the Yule Ball in their fourth year; the same tension between them. Then it had been a nervous excitement caused by the growing intensity of their feelings for one another. Now it stemmed from the things they kept from one another.

The provocation, however, hadn't changed. They egged each other on, pushing each other, audacious and brazen. Draco's movements were languid and sinuous. He swayed with Pansy, letting her tease him with every subtly evocative or unabashedly reckless whirl and dip she took. Pansy wasn't a pretty girl, but she had curves and a subtle mind. She knew what she had and how to use it to her advantage. Draco admired that about her and enjoyed the complicated pattern they wove together. His mind was effectively empty of every thing save how it felt to be half blinded by flashing fey strobes and heady music as he lost himself in this daring display. With her arms around his shoulders their bodies were pressed together and their heads bent teasingly in imitations of sultry kisses, which they pulled away from at the last possible instant, iniquitous smirks twisting their mouths.

The song ended, and another began. They continued to dance through that song and the next before returning to their table and ordering more drinks, which they lingered over before taking their place back under the lights of the floor. This arrangement continued as the night wore on: dancing till they were on the point of collapse, a fire whiskey (the stuff stopped burning quite as fiercely after a while), then back under the strobes, till it became hard to remember just what time it was and how many songs had played. Finally they made their way back to their table, Draco finding himself a touch unsteady. The lights were a bit too bright he thought, and he noted with surprise that he was in fact, inebriated. Part of his mind was aghast at this discovery.

_Malfoy's do not become intoxicated in public. It's slovenly. Father would never—No. Don't think of father. Don't think of anything. It's too late now, there's nothing to think of, not now. Don't think. He doesn't matter anymore. _

The tide of emotion he had managed to quell quite thoroughly was suddenly on top of him, drowning him, pulling him under. He was almost shaking with rage and anguish. He felt something akin to ice ripple through his blood. The lights of the club flashed wildly like vividly colored suns, the enchantments that powered them gaining in strength for one hot second and guttering sharply before normalizing.

"What was that?" Pansy's question startled him back to reality. "I knew when Blaise brought us here this place was on the shady side, but spelled light doesn't—Draco?" She reached out and put an unconscious hand on his arm. He flinched, and Pansy drew back in surprise. "You're white as salt. What's—,"

"I'll be back," he said distractedly, rising from the table.

The bathroom was lit by a single witchlight suspended near the ceiling. The green white orb gave of a harsh glow that made Draco's look spectral and inhuman. White as salt was putting it nicely.

He stared at the mirror and willed his heart to stop beating so violently and his breath to slow. He couldn't afford to lose control. It was irresponsible and childish to become so uninhibited. Reserve that has been crafted over years had slid aside without any resistance. Though the alcohol had played a part there, it was more than just intoxication—a crack was forming in the walls of the fortress he'd erected. He met his own eyes in the mirror, frustration building up in him. He reigned in his emotions as best he could, pulling in a slow breath and releasing it.

"Hey," a voice addressed him. He looked up to see a powerfully built young man in a tight black t-shirt with dark brown hair that stood in thick spikes standing behind him. "I know you, don't I?" His brows were knit as if he could almost place the blond youth, a pleasant look of near familiarity on his open face.

"No," Draco replied curtly, though he recognized the young man as a Hufflepuff who had gotten into a spectacular brawl with Marcus Flint and broken his nose in Draco's second year. Draco had been among those watching as the two savagely wrestled each other till a professor had hauled them off to their respective heads of house.

"Oh," said the young man, the pleasant look gone from his face. "Really, though, I swear I—,"

"You don't know me," Draco interrupted him forcefully, locking eyes with the young man in the mirror. "You can save yourself the trouble of trying to recall who I am, I know all that thinking must be terribly taxing." His words were delivered in a measured drawl.

The young man's face flushed. "No need for you to get nasty, I was just asking," he replied defensively. Even as the words left his mouth his face was twisting with rage and realization. He was behind Draco in less than an instant, grabbing him roughly by the shoulder and turning him around so that they were face to face. They were within an inch or two of each other's height, but the dark-headed young man was composed solidly of muscle and had at least four stone on Draco, who was built a good bit more slightly.

"You don't deserve to live, you know that?" he snarled as he grabbed Draco's collar. "Lucius Malfoy's brat. I knew I'd seen your face somewhere." He grabbed Draco by the wrist and jerked him violently around, forcing his arm high up his back and shoving him hard against the sinks so that the cheap porcelain dug painfully into his abdomen. "Killing muggleborns and half bloods just because you think you're fucking superior! _You're bloody revolting_!" he punctuated each of his of these last words with a hard slam against the sink with bruising force. Draco barely managed to breath as he struggled against the wall of flesh behind him. With one arm twisted painfully behind him and the other trapped useless against his chest by the edge of the sink, he was all but defenseless.

"Who's—the one—assaulting a minor—in a bloody—bathroom?" he hissed rashly through clenched teeth. He was rewarded with a sharp crack to the back of his head that caused his vision to pinwheel outrageously.

Rage that had been building behind the faltering wall of his reserve spiked violently.

His vision was shaking, presumably from the blow he'd received. He was no longer paying attention to his attacker, whose words had become an unintelligible stream of swearing and threats. He dealt another blow, this one between Draco's shoulders, causing his chin to slam hard against the porcelain surface of the sink and Draco to bite down hard on his tongue.

And then the weight was gone from his back. It took all his strength to stay upright. The young man had pulled out his wand, presumably to curse him, his reflection unsteady, for Draco's vision continued to shake violently as he looked into the mirror. There was the sound of sqealing hinges, and an exclamation, but he didn't notice them, realizing that it was not his vision but the mirror that was quivering, cracks spreading in a spider's web from the center quick as lightening. For an eye's blink the glass remained, laced with cracks, strangely beautiful it's damaged state.

The mirror exploded outward form the wall. Draco saw it as if from above and his current position, watching in slowed time as shards of silver sprayed in a thousand directions. His former attacker barely managed to guard his eyes as the deadly glittering splinters rocketed everywhere. Another figure standing near the door had thrown up his arms, effectively shielding himself. Draco alone remained motionless, transfixed. The shards were pretty, cutting paths through the air. Tiny daggers of ice or fatal glass snowflakes.

Time jerked to its proper alignment, and Draco stood unsteady on his feet before a blank wall.

"Draco?" He turned to the voice coming from his right. Blaise stepped toward his friend, the soles of his boots crunching on the shining glass slivers that sparked on the floor tiles. He shook him by the shoulder, eliciting a wince from Draco, who faltered and went to his knees. Blaise helped him to his feet again, casting a glace behind him, his expression of one worry and the beginnings of alarm.

"We gotta go," he said, putting an arm around Draco's waist and propelling him out the door of the bathroom. His voice had an anxious edge to it, and he looked over his shoulder repeatedly.

Draco felt as if he were being pulled along in a dream. It couldn't be real, could it? He knew that the arm around his waist was hurting him, but the pain was distant, an understood fact as opposed to a sensation. His teeth were slick and coppery, and that almost made sense, though he could not grasp why it should. The lights were bright, so bright . . .

. . They were out on the cobbled street. The outside of the club gave the semblance of a small, dirty shop that sold items of questionable magical repute with darkened windows. Save for the light of a few dim streetlamps, the darkness was complete. Draco allowed himself to be steered into the small gap between the club and the neighboring building.

Belatedly, Draco became aware that some one—Blaise—was speaking to him, but was being interrupted by intermittent static. "—that out later, but I gotta find Pansy and tell her we're leaving—_pfffffffftt—_don't know how you—_pfffffffftt—_just don't go anywhere."

He disappeared around the corner, leaving Draco to lean against the wall behind him. His head was aching spectacularly now, pain no longer an abstract feeling. Breathing was becoming a little difficult. He spat out the blood in his mouth, cursing under his breath. This was beyond degrading; and to add insult to injury, he was beginning to fell dizzy. He thought he heard footsteps, but the static in his head was getting quite distracting. He was vaguely aware that Blaise and Pansy were speaking in hushed, urgent voices and that he was no longer leaning against the wall, but on a something decidedly human. He started to protest, that he could bloody walk just fine himself and that the arm around his waist was fucking _hurting _him so stop bloody touching him, but sick dizziness was descending on him like a goshawk on a rat.

_The ground spins beneath Draco, taking him off his feet very neatly, but he doesn't feel the impact of his bruised body against the cobblestones—his world has gone black before then._


	4. Facing the Morning

_**Chapter Three: - **Facing the Morning _

_So when you fall to the ground_

_And finally get back to reality_

_And no one else is around_

_So tell me how does it feel to be the enemy?_

_The air is sweet and stale from too much smoke, too much alcohol, and too many people. It's the stench of excess, and Kay Fletcher smells it every morning when he cleans up his club, after he's closed the place down. In truth it's Mr. Borgin down the street who owns the building, but Kay runs the club, and so in the morning like this, when he's murmuring a last "Scourgify" at the bar and floor, he feels both possessive and content, even if he does know the tang of beer and dancing bodies too well. _

_There's glass on the floor, a shattered shot glass that the bartender Mary vanishes as Kay lingers over a much-needed cigarette before getting up to finish the last of the cleaning up. There's no smoking in the club, but he figures he's earned it. It's three o'clock, Wednesday morning; the club won't be open tonight, so Kay is looking forward to a day of doing very little, and he can afford to take his time. The club is a bit more of a mess than usual, but Kay doesn't mind the extra work. The club has been crowded for the past few nights. Last night was no exception, the dance floor packed with school kids looking for a good time before the start of term._

_Strictly speaking, Kay refuses to serve anyone underage; it happens to be illegal after all. But Mary can't check for _every _Apparation card. There's an elementary Age-line of sorts up at the bar, but it's there more in name than in practice. Kay is more worried about brawls and dueling, which are far more destructive to his club. It is for this reason that there are myriad ward spells and charms on the building and more than a few hexes which make it all but impossible to do complex magic on the premise, a very beneficial feature when dealing with very drunk or very angry wizards. It also seems to have a funny effect on less experienced magic users, a feature Kay is not at all objectionable to._

_On the whole this system works very well, with the only major exception having to do with the lights, which have a tendency to flicker or blaze when an extremely determined witch or wizard puts the wards to a particularly heavy test. This isn't actually supposed to happen, but it affords Kay a good deal of control over what takes place in his club. The wards are set to allow only him and anyone working that night to perform complex magic. Anyone able to circumvent Kay's wards is far outside of the club his league. In a case like that wards would be least of anyone's worries. But aside from the strobes going on the fritz once in a while, the club is – in Kay's mind at least – utterly perfect. _

_All masterpieces have their flaws, and Kay likes to think of his warding system as a masterpiece of sorts. The upshot of this lighting aberration is a warning when serious trouble comes about. Kay figures its just as good as _real _security, which he can't afford._

_The lights were guttering something fierce the previous night, which Kay has been informed of by Mary. She gave him a very dirty look when she told him this, implying that she knows very well what he was doing when he supposedly "went to bring up another case of Firewhiskey from the cellar." Kay still maintains that the blonde accompanying him had merely offered to help him carry. Things evened out later on, though, so he isn't too worried about it. _

_Stubbing out the end of his fag against the bottom of his shoe – ashtrays would merely encourage smoking among his patrons, and really, it's a filthy habit – Kay heads toward the lavatory on the off chance that some pathetic creature is still there needing his head fished out of a toilet. _

_Kay is near ready to send to send Mary on home, but something stops him; an inclination perhaps He pays attention to impulses like the one he has now; they're rare, but they aren't usually wrong. Like most wizards from older families, he is aware of the significance of gut feelings. He pushes open the door, his shoes scraping and crunching in a way he dislikes._

"_What the bloody h—"_

_Kay's eyes widen and the floor glitters as if it was strewn with diamonds, and he begins to swear profusely at what he sees. This is far beyond what he could possibly have expected. No one _expects_ things like this. _

"_Mary! Mary, get your arse in here!"_

_There are footsteps and dark mutterings from the bartender, followed by the thunk of the heavy door. Kay is already turning to push past her as Mary enters the lavatory, disturbed by the panicked edge to her employer's voice. She's holding an empty glass from the bar as well as a towel, both of which drop from her hands as she takes in the entire scene. The towel flops lightly to the floor. The glass clunks once on the cold floor, surprisingly still intact on the first impact. _

_The second impact shatters it, causing more shards to spray out and litter the floor, which dazzles the eyes as if covered with ten thousand fallen stars._

Awakening to sunlight spilling through one's bedroom window after a night of intoxicated revelry is rarely a pleasant occasion. Often one does not fall into the category of agreeable.

Add to drunken revelry a nasty altercation with an aggressive stranger and blacking out on a dirty cobbled street, and _semi-functional_ becomes a profoundly difficult height to achieve.

So it would be hard to fault Draco for awakening the morning of September first with a moan of pain and disgust (surely his head was going to split in half) followed closely by a torrent of curses at every thing from the sun—which seemed shining so brightly solely to burn his retina's to nothing—to the thunderous chiming of the grand clock in the entrance hall, which Draco knew was almost impossible to hear from his chamber.

After a good five minutes of hating himself and the rest of the world, Draco dragged himself to the bathroom, thankful for the darkness provided by the black marble of every surface.

Sitting on the edge of the bathtub, Draco gingerly removed his clothing, ignoring his body's protests at even this small movement and the way his head spun. To say that his head hurt did not accurately convey the feeling of being beaten about the temples with a broomstick.

His shirt was dirty; the front soiled with a spot of what might have been blood and smudges of dust that marred the fine fabric, evidence of his fall. He paused for a second, realizing he didn't remember anything after the fall.

He did remember in a hazy, jumbled way the glitter of broken glass, the flare of bright, dizzy lights in too many colors, the burn of alcohol at the back of his throat, and the nicks and bruises that were not exactly a memory.

How had he gotten home? Had his mother seen him? Even if she had, he doubted she'd say anything—his father had always been the hand of discipline. Draco doubted his mother would suddenly change to be the strict force his father had been. It simply wasn't in her nature. Nevertheless, he didn't relish the thought of her quiet, hurt disappointment, which would sting more than a slap or harsh words ever could.

He unlaced his boots, feeling particularly grimy at the thought of having slept in them. He dropped his clothes into a pile on the floor, turning on the water on as hot as he could stand it.

With a vigorous efficiency that all but took off a layer of skin, Draco scoured every inch of himself, as if attempting to wash away much more than dried sweat and the stench of stale smoke and alcohol that still clung to him. Through all of this he took care to avoid actually looking at the largish bruise on his side, though he didn't manage to keep himself from wincing and pulling air in sharply between clenched teeth as he scrubbed the area. He washed his hair repeatedly, not really caring that the repeated scraping at his scalp made the ache inside his skull worse.

It was something like penance for the previous night's events, which were hazy and inaccurate in his memory, clouded by the steam of the shower and the aftereffects of an unknown amount of alcohol, which only made the all-encompassing guilt he felt clearer. He half expected a letter to arrive at any moment proclaiming him to be expelled from Hogwarts for underage use of magic the morning he was returning to school. Involuntarily, Draco's lip merely curled in disgust at his own stupidity.

In truth, expulsion would be a mild consequence; depending on the severity of the injuries he had caused the other young man—and from what little he did remember clearly, he wasn't sure they would be mere bruises and scratches—he could very well be put before the Wizengamot. There would be no hesitation on that front—to have the father _and_ the son would be something like a crowning achievement for that useless dull-wit Fudge and the rest of his ineffective cabinet.

Draco understood very well what that set of consequences could—_would_—mean for him, and yet a funny feeling of apathy had settled on him like a wool blanket, when he was sure that he should be feeling something other than an empty, abstract sort of frustrated depression.

The guilt though, was sharp and immediate.

He scoured his pale hair yet again and turned the lever so that the water was near scalding.He knew what his father would say if he knew what Draco had done. It might have been one of the rare occasions that Lucius raised his voice to his son, berating him in angered tones as Draco unsuccessfully tried to explain himself or make half-hearted attempts to interject. More likely he would express in the iciest of tones how disappointed he was in Draco's actions and the tarnish he placed on the Malfoy name while Draco wished to sink through the floor. The Malfoy name irreversibly besmirched for a few hours of clubbing.

He felt a hot flood of shame as he imagined his father's reaction to his indiscretion. It made the feeling all the more acute to know Lucius wouldn't find out about it and he would go unpunished for his stupidity.

It was a difficult task to stave off the imposing feeling of hollow anxiety, but not impossible, and Draco did it beautifully via a copious amounts of soap, shampoo, and denial. The only thing he was unable to rid himself of was the nagging question_: how the hell had he gotten home?_ The scenarios his mind created made him sick with shame and apprehension; it was obvious he hadn't managed to get home without help.

The question now: Who would he be unable to look in the eye today?

He had a very clear idea of who that would be. He prayed that Blaise would have the grace to let the incident pass without comment. Nevertheless, he was thankful that it was Blaise, who – for all his theatrics and an attitude of complete indifference – had a surprising amount of discretion.

The blistering spray hit his raw skin like razors. He took pleasure in the feeling, letting the water beat down on his face and slide over his back and shoulders, the heat loosening the painful tension that suffused his muscles. For long minute he stood under the spray, his mind mercifully blank. It was a blessing to focus solely on the hot water flowing over him. Finally, he turned off the water and wrapped a thick towel around his waist, taking another from the rack to rub his hair dry.

Reluctantly he faced the mirror. His skin was damp and flushed from the heat of the shower, which served to emphasize the discolorations on his side. He looked ill. Pale hair hung into his face, dampness darkening it to the color of ash. There was a minor bruise on his jaw, but it was barely noticeable, for which he was grateful. His features were drawn, bluish circles smudged beneath his eyes, which were over bright and exhausted.

Draco stared at the face that gazed out of the mirror, seeing a near perfect reproduction of his father's face, the copy made more perfect by the drawn quality that had not faded with a few, inadequate hours of sleep. The same fair-as-death skin, same pale hair, straight and thick; the legacy of Lucius Malfoy. Draco had stopped slicking his hair back, but wet as it was at the moment, it was a dead on match. Ash colored brows formed straight, neat lines over mercurial eyes that looked, by some trick of light, silver as the lining of a cloud and very, very far away.

He didn't have the time or energy to sort through all of the emotions that were undulating too quickly toward the surface, so he shoved them away, clearing his head and setting his mind on the task before him. He returned to his chamber and carefully selected his attire, buttoning his shirt and smoothing his trousers meticulously, before running a comb through his hair, lacing his boots and sliding his wand into the pocket of his trousers.

When he looked at his reflection in the mirror again, an aristocratic, collected young man stared back at him. Not a hair was out of place, and his expression was haughty and sarcastic, any trace of his earlier distinct expression wiped clean away.

At that moment he could have fooled anyone into believing that nothing had changed, himself included.

With the sounds of early morning coming through the window and the scent of eggs, coffee, and bacon drifting through the air, Hermione was sure she had awoken to the most perfect instant in all of time.

Sitting up and pushing tangles away from her eyes, Hermione yawned, deliciously content. Today was the first day of school; she'd be back at Hogwarts, starting her sixth year—

It hit her then, much as delivery truck might hit an unsuspecting kitten.

_She had kissed Ron._

Much as she would have liked to throw a fit of some sort—joyous or self-berating, she was unsure—she calmly got out of bed, gathered up her things and headed to the bathroom. After performing her morning ablutions she donned her skirt and blouse and began to work on her hair, still damp from the shower. Ginny reluctantly awoke, stumbling hurriedly to the bathroom when she realized what time it was.

As Hermione yanked the comb through her hair, Hermione's mind whirled around the thought of The Kiss (even in her head it required capitol letters). It wasn't as if she hadn't kissed anyone before; Viktor had seen to that, and she couldn't say that she had been unenthusiastic. But the differences were numerous when comparing Viktor and Ron. Ron was her own age, and had known her for five years. Viktor had been speaking to her for barely more than two weeks before asking her to the Yule Ball, and had been considerably older. With Viktor, a kiss had been that and nothing more. When he'd gone back to Bulgaria, things had been truly friendly between the two of them, and had stayed so; his letters were platonic and genuinely affable. With Ron, the were years of history between them.

With Ron, everything _meant _something.

But what could Ron possibly mean by kissing her without prelude in the middle of Diagon Alley after so long spent denying that he had feelings for her, after all the arguments, the embarrassed moments when she'd began to think that perhaps she'd been wrong and—

"Hermione!"

She jumped at the sound of her name. Ginny was staring at her impatiently.

"C'mon! We'll be late if we don't hurry." Hermione raised the brush to her hair without thinking. "You stopped brushing your hair ten minutes ago, and it looks the same now as it did then." She eyed the other girl suspiciously, before shaking her head. "And _you're _the one who's a prefect, staring off into space like a concussed mooncalf."

Platform 9 ¾ was teeming with students, all of whom seemed to be speaking to at least three different people at once. Owls hooted, parents called out reminders to forgetful children, and cries of cheerful reunion rose up.

Something in the quality of the familiar din was strange to Hermione's ears.

Though she had at first regarded it as over sensitivity on her part, as she found herself talking with Lavender Brown in a friendlier manner than she had ever thought possible, she became more sure: a sense of forceful comradery seemed to have settled on Hogwarts's students.

She didn't think it was obvious to many others—it was an unconscious action. Or more accurately, an _overreaction _to the relief of being back among fellow students, people you could never be quite sure were still real until you saw them up close.

Then again, perhaps she was assigning her own feelings to others.

The words "You-Know-Who" were heard more often than usual in snatches of conversation, and in quieter voices than was necessary, as if releasing suppressed tension in short, anxious bursts. So many unabashed glances had brushed Harry's scar that Hermione considered it a miracle that smudge marks hadn't been left on his forehead, like fingerprints on fine glass. The look of ill-concealed displeasure that crossed Harry's face each time a new pair of eyes surveyed him worried her more than she liked to admit to herself.

Harry caught her staring at him. She smiled in what she hoped was a reassuring manner, but she knew it was useless—he turned away, like he had from every other attempt made by anyone. It was one of those things she both adored and hated about Harry; he'd do what was necessary to get through anything, but you could never be sure how much it cost him until long after it was said and done and too late to change anything.

She understood why they looked to Harry. He was their sign; the proof that good could triumph over evil even while he served as a reminder of just how close to them the darkness could come.

It was becoming rapidly clearer that safety was no longer a guarantee.

The Daily Prophet _had_ reported the stories, one in early July and another in August. They had been near the back of the paper, short columns of less than one hundred and fifty words each, drowned with coverage of the high-profile stories that gave no new information to the public.

"_Responding to a report of magical disturbance, Ministry officials departed for a small Muggle neighborhood in Kent Thursday evening…Upon arrival, ministry officials found the residence Ezra and Doreen Sayre missing…Their son, Justin, 6, was found in the family's cellar in shock…He was taken to St. Mungo's Hospital before being released to the custody of his aunt ... Further investigation will continue."_

"_Alexander MacDonald, 45, and his daughter Natalie, 13, have been reported missing after Mr. MacDonald did not report for work at Whizzhard books Monday morning and could not be contacted… co-worker of MacDonald's stopped by the residence to find the front door unlocked and the house empty... Investigations are ongoing"_

Neither of the reports had made it anywhere near the Daily Prophet's cover page, which was taken up by coverage of the Death Eater trials being held, most notably Lucius Malfoy's. His face had adorned the front page for a solid week prior to his trial. When Malfoy was finally put before the Wizengamot at the start of August, the proceedings had been surprisingly quick, lasting for only the better part of two afternoons before he was neatly packed off to Azkaban.

The Ministry acted as if it were a huge victory, putting away such an insidious villain. It was tacitly ignored that this insidious villain had been an important political figure only a few months before.

The Ministry's answer to this was to downplay and even at times ignore it's own sorry state of internal affairs. Instances that should have been plastered across the front page of the Daily Prophet had been tacitly shunted away from the public eye.

Whether it was more to keep the public from panicking or to mask the ministry's ineptitude was unclear. For Hermione, it failed to do either.

_After all_, a small, scathing voice in Hermione's mind hissed_, "If one doesn't want the people know how dark of a shadow they're living under, don't remind them what real sunlight looks like."_ Vaguely, she thought that this might have been a line from a book she had read, but the title of the work eluded her.

Due to the fact that a meeting would be held before breakfast on the second day of classes, prefects were not required to sit in their assigned carriage for the train ride. Upon their arrival at the platform Ginny had immediately abandoned her companions upon sight of Dean Thomas—who had grinned at her affectionately and kissed her, unaware of a rather threatening glare from Ron—leaving the trio to find an empty compartment. They managed to find one near the back of the train and settled in.

For some reason it was impossible to find anything to say.

The three were silent for a while, Harry staring out the window at nothing as if it were the most interesting thing in the entire world, Hermione watching him in much the same manner, and Ron seemingly wanting to say something but refraining from it.

The grating tension was like the buzz of fluorescent lights in an otherwise silent room, a sound Hermione hated with a passion. The train pulled away from the station, and a final flurry of goodbyes was shouted out the windows to family members before the students settled into their compartments or traveled to others to talk with companions that hadn't seen all summer.

Laughter filtered into the compartment as the door was opened.

"Oh, no, occupied," said the young man turning to someone behind him before inclining his head a fraction with the word "Granger."

"Zabini," she said coolly. This received a suspicious look from Ron, who had been staring with a combination of disturbance and confusion at Zabini's T-shirt, which read, "I've been a bad boy. Send me to your room." for reasons Hermione did not want to contemplate

"Blaise, stop consorting with the serfs," a voiced intoned lazily from behind him. "Just because they appear diseased and helpless does not mean that one need feel pity for them." Ron snarled at this, making as if to rise from his seat, and Harry turned from the window, his previously unfocused gaze alighting on the pale countenance of the figure standing next to Zabini, who seemed to be trying to keep from laughing.

"Malfoy, you—,"

"Don't over tax yourself Weasley," Malfoy interrupted. "Sentence structure isn't one of your strong suits." Ron went a shade of red not generally found in nature. Malfoy smirked, his eyes narrowed as if it was not even worth the effort to open them fully for the lowly creatures before him. Zabini stood patiently at his side, saying nothing. His expression was bright and amused, but an underlying wariness hovered in them behind their dark vivacity.

"So how's your father been, Draco?'' Harry asked, his words falsely conversational. Hermione watched what little color there was in Malfoy's face drain from it. It didn't seem possible to be that white, as if not just color but life was leeching away from the surface of Malfoy's skin. What was just as disturbing, if not more so, was Harry's tone. She had never heard him sound so cruel, even to Malfoy, bastard that he was.

Malfoy's wand was out and pointed between Harry's eyes in the time it took to blink.

Harry was still quicker, on his feet and half the disarming spell already on his lips before Malfoy ever had a chance to strike. His wand shot from his hand and clattered to Harry's feet. Harry nudged it with the toe of his trainer so that it rolled over the floor to a place a foot from where Malfoy was standing.

Eyes fierce with fury and frustration, Malfoy slowly dropped to one knee and retrieved his wand, his gaze never leaving the dark headed boy standing before him whose expression was a study in impassivity.

He straightened almost formally, and seemed ready to try again at hexing Harry, when Zabini hissed something barely audible at Malfoy before turning to another compartment and walked away. Malfoy followed him with a look of murder in his eyes.

Hermione wondered about that as she stood to shut the compartment door. The comment on his father had thrown him into a cold fury. He had gone the color of skim milk, as if he were shutting _off_ a part of himself. It had been like a light bulb burning out.

Harry had become more alive, his eyes blazing at the anticipation of a fight. He _needed_ to fight something, anything, and Hermione was starting to believe that he didn't really care who or what that was, so long as it put up resistance of some sort.

It was a far and frightening cry from _her_ Harry, a boy she now had to look very closely to see.

_He's the fucking Boy Who Lived. You won't win this_ _fight. Ever._

Blaise's words had frozen Draco, striking him hard and leaving him paralyzed more efficiently than any hex Potter could have cast on him. Blaise walked off to find Vince, Pansy, and Greg. Draco followed, hating Blaise more with every step.

He'd still followed.

Though it went unsaid, it was clear that Blaise had been the one to take him home the previous night. It ate at him that he should feel beholden to Blaise, who said nothing of the previous nights events. Instead it hung between them unsaid. Draco himself was determined to remain silent, lest he draw more attention to the situation, which he was desperately trying to drive out of his still-aching head.

_You won't win this fight. Ever._

He'd been right, which had incensed Draco most. It really was that obvious to the rest of the world that no matter how hard he fought, wherever he stood, he would always, always lose to Potter.

Blaise pulled open the door to a compartment, revealing Greg asleep, his head tipped back and mouth open as he snored in much the same manner as a severely congested bull. Pansy and Vince sat across from one another on the seat next to him, playing cards. Pansy cheated shamelessly, taking full advantage of the fact that Vince rarely noticed she was cheating. When he did happen to catch her at it, he tended not to say anything, merely give her suspicious looks. Pansy responded by flashing him a wide, unabashedly insincere smile before continuing to beat him thoroughly.

Blaise draped himself over one of the empty benches, putting a stick of gum in his mouth and folding the wrapper into a small square and flicking it toward Greg's sleeping form. Draco sat down across from him, eyes alight with anger. He knew at that moment he looked very much like a petulant, sulking child, but his rage burned away any self-consciousness. After a moment, Blaise looked up, his expression bored.

"What the fuck was that?" Draco snarled at the other boy. "Where the hell do you get off t –,"

"I'd rather not be threatened with expulsion the second we step of the train, if it's all the same to you." Blaise's clipped tone cut him off sharply.

Pansy looked up from her game. "What's the matter with you two? Run into the terrible trio?"

Draco laughed mirthlessly. "Blaise was just having a good time talking with Granger when Potter and I got into a little argument, which her for some reason he felt the need to get in the middle of." He turned toward Blaise. "Why were you chatting with the Mudblood anyway?" The query was falsely good-natured and dripping with ire.

Pansy looked at the boy, confused. "Blaise, what—,"

"Did the events of last night leave your head entirely?" Blaise snapped, ignoring Pansy entirely as he glared at Draco is something very like a challenge.

Draco wanted to hex him. Blaise acted as if he was the one at fault, as if he had had control over the events that had taken place. It felt a like being disowned, watching them disapprove of him when he deserved their understanding. Damn but this was not how things were supposed to go. Since when was any of this _his _fault?

"Is there something _else _I can help you with?" Blaise asked, cocking an eyebrow at the pale boy, who hadn't taken his eyes off him

"Why the bloody hell did you stop me?" Draco's expression was one of anger and disdain, insulted by Blaise's interference. Pansy had now fully abandoned the game in front of her, frowning slightly before turning her back to Vince, her attention now on the conversation between the two boys.

"Because you were being stupid." Blaise's words came out very slowly, as if re-explaining himself for the thousandth time to a slow child. Draco opened his mouth to form a cutting protest, but Zabini cut him off. "How hard did you hit your head last night? 'Cause you seem to have forgotten that you got were _brawling _in a _lavatory._ And then you feel the need to get into a duel with Potter, icon and bloody savior of the magical world."

All of this came out in a very conversational tone, Blaise's expression something between uninterested and vaguely exasperated. Draco's reply was slow acid.

"Tell me, when did you develop a conscience? Because it doesn't really suit you." His tone implied a thousand transgressions that Blaise had committed, all of which Draco could describe in detail.

Blaise's expression faltered for half a second before returning to mild annoyance. "You see the shrubbery so clearly, but I swear you wouldn't notice the forest if it bloody fell on you. They'll kick you out for the _smallest_ thing, you know." He continued, "Things aren't in your favor any longer. _None_ of us are going to be showered by any sort of benevolence. So make it easy for the rest of us and be an idiot on your own time."

Draco might have protested this, but he decided against it. He knew he had been wrong, and had been berating himself for it since around eight that morning. But to hear Blaise say the same thing to him that he had been saying to himself chafed at him fiercely. For Blaise of all people to take up this attitude of sober sensibility—after all the shit he'd pulled, all of the things he'd gotten away with, all the thing he _hadn't_ gotten away with—angered Draco beyond measure. The whole stinking world had turned upside-down and against him and everyone he knew with it.

Pansy's brows were drawn together at this. She turned to Draco, as if about to say something, but thought better of it, her face going expressionless.

"Look, there are fewer students in Slytherin this year than any year we've been at Hogwarts," Blaise stated, his words resigned in way that was more foreign to his nature than an icicle would be to Hades. Still, the anger was gone. He continued, "I heard from Ted Nott that three of the seventh years have transferred to Durmstrang, not to mention all the families who are just sending their kids to smaller schools like Wyverly and Olmond. Hogwarts hasn't got to even_ pretend _to be civil to us any longer. "

The pause that followed is words held more meaning that the words themselves. For a long second, no one spoke, only glanced at one another, attempting to gauge the type of reaction appropriate in response to what had just been said. Pansy broke in first.

"Slytherin's always been the smallest house." Her tone was haughty, serving to emphasize confidence she was very obviously not feeling. "This isn't going to change anything." Her words came out more as if she wanted to believe them than as if she actually did, with vehemence that was directed at everyone in the compartment. "And no one will find out what happened last night," she said pointedly, but her eyes didn't meet those of anyone else in the compartment. She began to gather up the cards, shuffling them and reshuffling them before putting them into a fold of her robes.

The list of people that Draco Malfoy was not willing to lie to was an exceedingly short one. The first name that appeared on that list was his. So while he projected the appearance of taking the girl's words to heart, there had never been so much as an instant that he found himself relaxing into the false sense of security those words provided. As the conversation turned toward a more normal line of topics, Draco found his eyes wandering more and more often to, and eventually out the window, and his mind with it, even as he kept up a light banter with his housemates.

Brooding was something he had not indulged in since early summer. However, it was a very Slytherin pastime, and house pride was after all terribly important. By the time they had passed into Scotland, they had lapsed into silence, Blaise eventually leaving the compartment with an eloquently distracted expression on his face and a murmured excuse about going to talk to some of his friends in Ravenclaw.

Draco was about to make a very scathing comment on the other boy's earlier demeanor, but something in Pansy's expression stopped him, and he lapsed more deeply back into his previous state of brooding solemnity.

The sky purpled to the shade of a fresh bruise, then darkened to the inky velvet blue marred by ten thousand minute pinpricks of faraway light. The breaks of the engine squealed and sighed and finally halted.

Draco got to his feet, Vince stepping in behind him and Greg falling in opposite him, Pansy taking her place at Draco's elbow out of habit, forming the unit of "Malfoy's Court" that they knew best. The familiarity of it was comforting, reassuring, or perhaps just reminding them of who they were now that they had arrived. They would play their roles well; too busy acting the parts to remember that they were something other than the characters they portrayed for the eyes of others.

Forgetting a thing does not transform it. Merely, it suspends the inevitable realization of a truth, which is often more overwhelming in it's delay.

Things were not going well for Angeline Viridian, for a number of reasons.

Her left foot was falling asleep.

There was a smudge on one of the lenses of her eyeglasses.

Something in the trifle _really_ had _not_ agreed with her.

And she was bloody _nervous_.

She was seriously reconsidering the intelligence of her decision to take the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor at Hogwarts School, and for far better reasons than bad trifle and nerves.

The Sorting hat had been cleared away along with the newly sorted first years. All applause had died, the silence that replaced it laced with expectation. Every eye in the hall was focused on the head table, waiting for the Headmaster to speak. The surety they had in him surpassed reason. Save for those seated at the staff table, it was possible to count on one hand those present who had lived to witness any sort event that provided a basis for that type of blind faith.

"_It is a sad day when we find ourselves returning to Hogwarts with fewer in our number than there should be…"_

Angeline Viridian was not one of these people, and she _did_ happen to be seated at the staff table, something she still had a difficult time accepting. Somehow, she was working as a _teacher_ for a man she had no reason to place any sort of trust in.

There was a complete injustice to this. She was twenty-seven years old, intelligent, and more than confident that she could—and _would_—do her job well. She would not have been hired if it were otherwise. In all truth, if she hadn't believed herself that she wasn't suited to it, she'd never have accepted the position. She'd been _asked_ to—though who would _apply _afterwhat had happened in recent years—and decided to take on the position. It would be a challenge, but her other options were less than appealing, so she had taken up the offer and was now seated at a table she could remember staring at from her seat at from her house table as a student and thinking of how she couldn't wait to be away from this place for good.

She was seated among her own professors, now her fellow staff members, wondering how the hell she had gotten into this situation, which was sure to evolve into a disaster, as a man she had at one time feared and had never like or really even trusted, comforted the students—_her_ students now as well—over the loss of two their numbers.

The headmaster had finished with his speech and was now moving on to other matters.

" . . .more encouraging, note, I would like to introduce the newest member of the Hogwarts staff, Professor Angeline Viridian."

She tried not to let her smile turn cynical at how the word "professor" sounded to her – which was more like a sentence for some crime more than anything – or the applause that followed his words.

"First years this way." Hermione called out over the commotion of the end of the feast. Stuffed with food, the high of anticipation deserting them, the newest Gryffindors were acquiescent, picking themselves up from the table and making their way to the entrance to the hall. Harry and Ron were ahead of her, talking with Seamus and Neville about some incomprehensible and intensely masculine subject. After the summer they'd had, Hermione was glad that they had slipped back into the comfortable normality of school, though in truth it was too early to be sure of this. And there was a restrained air about the way they spoke. The solemnity of the Headmaster's speech had muffled the exuberance of the students.

The train ride had consisted of conversation that at one time was by all appearances normal, aside from the extensive explanation to Ron that Zabini was simply in her Arithmancy class, no, he was not to her knowledge in inherently evil, and no, she did not associate with him on a regular basis.

Still, after Malfoy's little appearance Hermione had continued to catch herself glancing at Harry, as if trying to discern where that aberrant vitriol had come from. Harry was normally one of the most compassionate people she knew. It was so rare that he purposefully said anything so hurtful. He knew firsthand how it felt to be struck regularly with petty cruelties; she understood from the very little that Harry had told her of his relatives that he loathed the grinding tension of their constant unconscious nastiness. It was something that she loved about him that he was so different from them, not allowing their bigoted resentment make him into something weak or spiteful.

"_So how's your father been, Draco?''_

It had been so direct an attack, so cutting, and vindictive. The cool malice of the remark, so lightly said, was so unlike Harry. He was the type to get angry and yell or fume. Snide remarks were Malfoy's province, and the Slytherin had merely stood there as if he'd been slapped across the face.

But it _had_ been Malfoy, and he was a nasty, racist, slimy little snot that deserved whatever he got. And he'd _always _been the one person who could get to Harry more than anyone. He made it his goal to make Harry notice him and to draw Harry into conflict.

Hermione saw it then, but she didn't think to stop it. She stood watching the whole thing unfold like a well-rehearsed play, each detail a variation on a theme that had been created ages. Harry and Ron were standing, conversing with Seamus. Harry was facing the entrance of the Great hall, which Malfoy was just leaving, flanked by Crabbe and Goyle, to whom he was talking to spiritedly. His hands were moving rapidly and his eyes were bright as the two larger boys nodded along with his clearly rapid speech, catching perhaps every word out of five.

Harry's eyes, which had been focused on Seamus, traveled to a point past the sandy-haired boy's shoulder. His attention appeared to remain on the other boy, his eyes narrowed in that way that was reserved for one person, alighting on the Slytherin, whose animation at the moment was out of place after the sober nature of the feast. Hermione thought of the way so many eyes had traveled over to the Slytherin table during the feast in response to the bright, inappropriate laughter that had bubbled up from time to time. The almost defiant quality to Malfoy's unconcerned brightness made it impossible to ignore.

Harry had never been able to ignore Malfoy, who seemed to make a goal of Getting Potter's Attention.

Malfoy's eyes flicked to Harry, brimming with fierce rage. Hermione saw the palest pink flush spread over the bridge of his nose and his cheeks. Suddenly, everything about him said determination.

It wasn't any different now than it ever had been.

The two boys had not been in danger of so much as brushing sleeves before they had taken note of each other. If they had never noticed one another, they would have passed without even feeling the disturbance of the air created by their robes. But somehow Harry was standing directly in Malfoy's way, doing anything but moving and suddenly the two were set to collide as if it had been ordained by the gods.

Their shoulders struck, and their stances were defensive before either had had a chance to even register the actual blow.

"Watch where you're going, Malfoy!" Harry snarled into Malfoy's face.

They were less than a foot apart, ready to launch themselves at each other, needing a catalyst.

"Is it my fault you don't have the brains to move out of the way, Potter?" the Slytherin sneered in reply, shoving Harry away from him.

Harry's wand was out before Hermione could blink; Malfoy's followed within the second, jinxes called out in sharp heated voices as students moved out of the way of the two. The jet of blue-white light from Malfoy's wand shot past Harry an inch from his face, which elicited a gasp from Hermione, as well as a few of the first years standing behind her that she had all but forgotten. The jinx hit one of large windows, obliterating one of the panes of tinted glass. Harry's aim was off by his dodging the jinx. His own jinx caught one of the doors to the Great Hall.

Neither boy got a chance at a second shot.

"What the _hell_ are the two of you doing?" a female voice called out angrily. Harry and Malfoy's heads turned in unison to see the new Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor standing a foot from the spot that Harry's jinx had hit. There was a scorch mark in the wood that still smoked slightly.

Hermione found herself biting her lip to keep herself from calling out the words "It wasn't Harry's fault!" But then really… that wasn't true was it? He _could_ have stepped out of Malfoy's way; he _could _have refrained from casting the jinx that was now bringing down the anger of their new professor on him.

"What were the two of you doing, dueling the middle of a hallway? What makes you think you're so special that you can act completely irresponsibly?" The new professor was now standing between the two boys, who had both been effectively silenced by this last comment. Harry at least had the decency to look somewhat contrite, though he shot a murderous glance at Malfoy. The Slytherin had his chin lifted defiantly; though he was looking a bit unsure by now, unused to the sheer volume the young professor had used to express herself. The way her eyes were narrowed and blazing did not bode well for either of the boys.

"What is going on here?" Hermione recognized the voice of her head of house. Professor McGonagall's lips were almost invisible; so tightly were they pressed together. Her hair was pulled back severely as usual, and the whiteness of outrage that colored her face made the sight all the more striking.

The new professor turned quickly at the sound of McGonagall's voice, an expression on her face that Hermione would wonder about afterward. For a second she didn't speak, then, seeming to remember herself, she stated clearly, in tones much more even than those she had uses to address the two boys, "These two seemed to think that this would be the perfect setting to show off their dueling skills."

Hermione thought she could almost hear McGonagall's enraged indignation at the thought of one of her own students being so far out of bounds, and it was at this point that she felt very sorry for Harry, who was very likely going to be receiving one of the nastier punishments of his school career.

"Professor Viridian, would you be so kind as to take Mr. Malfoy to his head of house and explain the situation," Professor McGonagall said in a voice that was very quiet and much too calm to foreshadow anything other than Something Very Ugly. "Mr. Potter, please come with me."

The younger professor nodded, giving both of the boys somewhat odd looks, before heading toward the dungeons. Malfoy followed like a man headed for the gallows.

Professor McGonagall surveyed the crowd of students that gathered around to witness the spectacle. "The rest of you have places to be," she state primly. "I suggest you go to them. Now." With that, she headed toward the nearest stair, Harry making his way up the staircase after her with an expression of mute rage on his face.

Later, when Hermione was back in her dormitory, she thought again about Harry's clash with Malfoy. The entirely rules and regulations centered side of her mind kept reminding her clearly that Harry shouldn't have let Malfoy get to him like that. He simply wasn't worth it.

In another part of her mind, she wondered if maybe Harry had let it happen. He had stood before Voldemort – she was able to say the name in her thoughts now at least – and held his own. How could someone like _Draco Malfoy_ get to anyone so much?

"_the whole stinking world" – _from _Velvet Goldmine _(Todd Haynes, 1998)

Lyrics—_Enemy_ by Sevendust

Many thanks to my beta readers Mir andBeth fortheir hard work, and to Mary who only rolls her eyes when it's absolutely necessary.

Please Review


	5. Warnings

_**Reflections in a Broken Mirror**_

**Summary: **

Sometimes the best things for you are right in front of you; sometimes they're farther away than the stars. And other times, you wouldn't know the best thing for you if it bit you in the ass. It's always easiest to get into the most trouble when you've convinced yourself all the trouble is over.

**Rating:** R (M)

**Author's Note: **

Thanks go to my betas, Beth and Mir who have done amazing things with this chapter, the longest yet. Thanks also to Limejuice Tub, Hafthand, Voldie's pink teddie, duj, pensive puddles, Electra Black, Perfection in Parody, Athena Linborn, Trisak Aminawn, sissified, and froggiesrcool for your reviews, which were so very encouraging. Hugs and wet sloppy kisses to all of you, or Pixie Stix if you prefer. As for the wait, I am swamped with testing (ACT, PSAE, AP testing), so I've been preparing, which ate my time. I'm so very sorry about this, as I have had this chapter done for a while but no time to do a last once over and post it. If it gets to bee too long a time between updates, feel free to e-mail me or pop by my Livejournal (fritzi17). Feel free to friend me – it would make me feel very special – and I will happily friend you back. To anyone who is still reading, you are wonderful. Pixie Stix for you, and wish me luck in the next few weeks on these nightmarish standardized tests of doom.

**Warning: **

Yes, I feel this chapter needs a warning. Notice that the rating has gone up from T to M. I really hate his new rating system, but basically, this means that this fic is now R-rated. This chapter contains mostly thematic material, but in he next chapters, I will be putting that rating change to good use.

Also, I'm warning you now, there is _implied slash_ in this chapter—though if you've been looking very carefully, you've seen it already, so you might see it coming. In upcoming chapters, it will move from implication to _actual slash_. YES, this is a Hermione/Draco story, but there is also a HUGE amount of setup and back-story for these two to get to that point, and some of that back-story contains a slash relationship. Really, open-mindedness is a great thing. The Hermione/Draco IS COMING!

And so, with no more wibbling on my part, I give you:

_**Chapter Four** - Warnings_

_Take these hands they're good for nothing_

_You know these hands have never worked a day_

_Take these boots they're going nowhere_

_You know these boots don't want to stray_

Severus Snape was not in the best of dispositions. When the knock at the door to his office came late in the evening, interrupting his preparations for the following day's classes, he knew immediately that what would follow would inevitably try his patience severely. Setting down his quill, he called irritably, "Come in."

The door opened to reveal Professor Viridian followed by a sullenly impassive Draco Malfoy, whose smoke colored eyes stared straight ahead into the middle distance and gave away nothing.

"Professor McGonagall asked me to escort Mr. Malfoy. He and a boy from Gryffindor were dueling outside the Great hall just now." She seemed about to say more, but thought better of it and simply nodded in his direction

"I see. Thank you, Professor Viridian," he said, his eyes coming to rest on Draco as the other professor turned to leave the classroom.

Severus regarded his student for a moment, saying nothing, before motioning to the chair before his desk. The boy sat, but remained silent, waiting to be addressed, making it clear he would volunteer nothing. Severus continued to work on the lesson plan before him for several minutes, making notations in neat, slanted print as the boy sitting before his desk became perceptibly uncomfortable. Finally, Severus set down his quill and addressed the boy.

"Tell me, Mr. Malfoy, were you born without self-control?" His tone was cold and impassive, and the boy's expression flickered in just the slightest.

"Potter started it, Sir," he stated firmly, the natural defiance of his words held in check. The immaturity of his statement did not matter – it managed not to sound like an excuse, but the description of an affront to Draco's honor.

"Is Potter's idiocy an excuse for your own?" Again, his words were icy-quiet, but cold ire was always the worst, because it didn't burn itself out. The serene quiet of the room had turned thick like clotting blood.

Severus Snape had liked very few students in his long tenure as Potions master. He found most children to be either unequivocally dull-witted or high on their own supposed intelligence. Few had the work ethic or precocity that he appreciated in a student, and many who did show traces of talent where often preoccupied with idiotic pursuits, intent on wasting their abilities.

When Severus had first been faced with the eleven-year-old Draco Malfoy, he had held out no hope for the boy. He had met the boy on more than one occasion while visiting Malfoy Manor on business, but had withheld any type of judgment on the child's character. Granted, he was Lucius' son, but this was no guarantee of anything. Upon truly assessing him that first time, he found the boy to be arrogant and too clever by half, but not clever enough to know how to use his intelligence to his advantage, instead inflicting it upon others in a terribly irksome manner. Worst, he believed that his father's name was enough to strike fear into the souls of nearly anyone that did not act as he wished. He was Malfoy to the core, but he lacked the cool reserve that had been bred in to the very essence of his forefathers.

Then Severus had learned who the boy was, seen the true substance of him. He could remember it down to the day, almost to the hour, so deep an impression it had made.

Severus had wanted very badly to send each one of them right back out the door the second they had stepped through it, with the command to grow about five inches. He had barely trusted them to hold butter knives safely, and shuddered to think what horrors the sniveling brats might produce when allowed access to hellebore and an open flame The Potter boy had proven himself an idiot at every turn, a veritable carbon copy of his father. The Granger girl's constant twitching as if she might explode did she not answer a question gave proof to his suspicion that she was in fact an insufferable know-it-all.

His own new students had been little better; Parkinson and Bulstrode scribbling notes to one another as Zabini had swung his feet incessantly and loudly popped chewing gum. If this had not been trying enough, Severus had found himself having to put up with Malfoy and his two hulking friends erupting into fits of laughter every time the Potter boy had answered a question incorrectly.

Snape had held out no hope for finding any sort of talent in this class, praying that the Ravenclaws were a brighter set. He had paired the students, and was surprised to find that Lucius' son had not only settled into his work easily, but had bullied the much larger Vincent Crabbe into silence, quite competently stewed his horned slugs and was now adding powdered snake fang to the pleasantly steaming cauldron with bright-eyed concentration. Severus had been surprised at the neat efficiency with which the boy worked, as well as the meticulous care he took with every detail. He had complemented Draco on his work, surprising himself and the boy, who had gone still in what mirrored confusion and then stared at him with unabashed admiration. Severus had been thrown by the boy's reaction.

He had been even more surprised to discover that after that day, the boy had seemed to feel the need to prove himself worthy of that small show of approval. The boy's drive to prove himself bordered on obsessive, startling Severus.

Then again, he was Lucius' son, his flesh and blood. It only made sense that he reflect this aspect of his father's character as well.

The Potions master had gradually become accustomed to this oddity in the boy, who took every opportunity given him to prove that he was the best, that he was worthy.

The one thing the boy lacked was an ability to control himself. It was impossible for Draco to allow a chance to have the last word pass him by. He had an uncanny knack for getting himself in trouble.

Or at least, he had at the age of twelve, when such things were nothing more than immaturity and impulsivity

Now, as he stood on the cusp of adulthood, it became recklessness and something like unconscious self-sabotage.

"Draco –," he started, his voice still artic and without emotion. That he used the boy's first name was a measure of untold affection, though Severus would die rather than admit it. "I have been your instructor and head of house for five years. You have always been a competent student and intelligent in your own right."

Severus was taken aback for a moment by the way the boy's eyes fair glowed at his words, before he remembered himself and his face was calm and opaque again, showing less than nothing. Undeterred by the boy's momentary slip, Severus continued. "And yet, for some reason, you cannot find it in you to show even a modicum of maturity when you are faced with Potter or any of his little companions."

" Sir, I –," he began, but Severus cut him off in a whisper sharp as a blade.

"I would have thought that recent events would have taught you to curb your temper at least. Surely you see the results of not keeping yourself in check." Draco's face paled the slightest bit at that, but Severus continued, his voice soft as ever. "Surely you were _raised_ differently," he said, striking hard and deep.

It took so little to achieve his intended end.

The boy flinched visibly before a blank stare overtook his eyes. He'd hit something that time, Severus knew. The one thing that had always kept the boy in line was the desperate aspiration to please his father, and Severus had learned to exploit this desire. Lucius Malfoy's disapproval, real or imagined, was enough to keep his son obedient and focused.

It was also a constant reminder of the strange hold Lucius Malfoy had over his son. Severus was aware of the unsentimental and virtually affectionless hand Lucius took in raising his son; that the boy was so fiercely devoted to pleasing him was a testament to a twisted sort of perseverance on Draco's part.

Severus was deeply disgusted by this waste of fidelity to a man and an ideal so flawed.

That Severus saw this same quality in himself was not the issue at hand.

Draco's face was an impassive mask again, but Severus knew the boy well enough to see the tension in his shoulders and the look in his eye that meant too many things at once.

" Your prefecture is already in jeopardy due to your actions, Mr. Malfoy," he said softly, carefully avoiding the familiar use of the boy's first name and stressing the last word just slightly. "You'll have detention for the next week. And –," he added, cutting the boy off before he had a chance to protest, "if there is a repetition of this indiscretion, I can guarantee that detention will be the least of your worries."

The boy's eyes were unreadable, but his jaw tightened the slightest bit.

"You may make as many attempts to waste your potential as you wish, but I certainly won't aid you. And I strongly suggest you avoid this situation or any one like it in the future. You may go."

At length, he added, "If you wish to continue your duties in assisting me as you did last year, you may begin next week."

Without another word, he returned to the lesson plan he had been working out as if Draco wasn't there. The boy had been dismissed and there was nothing more to it.

It wasn't until he heard the door shut behind the boy that he let out the breath he had been holding.

Something in him told him that this once, it had been wrong to bring up Lucius. The boy needed his own reasons to save himself from himself. He regretted his words to the boy, but Severus understood regret well. He had accepted a long time ago that there were things he hadn't the power to change, and there was little he could do in this case, no matter how much he might want to intervene.

It wasn't his place, and it never would be.

XXX

Blaise Zabini stared up at the low stone ceiling of the dungeons, his eyes following a meandering crack above him. The back of his head rested on the couch's back, the fabric creating a crosshatched pattern on his skin that he could feel too well. Pansy lay with her head pillowed on the arm of the sofa, taking up two full cushions of her own and most of Blaise's as well, her ankles crossed and one heel resting against the boy's hip.

The two had taken up residence on the couch after the feast with some comment or another about not being tired by way of explanation to their fellow sixth years. It went unspoken that they were waiting for Draco. Blaise wasn't sure why he had chosen to; if he examined all of it logically, he and Draco were more acquaintances than friends. The two had been nearly inseparable for a few months during their fourth year, but they had drifted.

Or so Blaise liked to tell himself. He remembered down to the second when he and Draco had stopped being friends and entered that grey uncomfortable area with no name that had eventually dissolved into the funny half-friendly tension the two had resided in ever since. When they had left school at the end of fourth year, Blaise had been unsure whether he was hurt, angry, or just disgusted. Eventually he had set all of this aside and settled on indifferent. He hadn't known what Draco had felt about it, but he found he didn't much care.

They had returned the summer after fourth year to find themselves nearly strangers to one another. Blaise, in tattered blue jeans, his hair, which had never quite been neat now curling darkly over his ears and the words to "Rock the Casbah" on his lips, had just stared at the neat, pallid boy with a silvery prefect's badge gleaming on the front of his dark robes, the crease of his crisp collar razor-sharp and not a single strand of light hair out of place.

Blaise had been unable to remember then, how they had ever managed to get along. Blaise's blood was as pure as it needed to be, and he'd been raised to respect names and lineage, but the Zabini family hadn't managed to weather the centuries without a healthy understanding of adaptation. And when Blaise had stood facing his one-time friend, he had stepped away, readjusted himself to the rift between himself and this boy, and had begun to create a new definition for what was between them.

The two still talked, assuredly. They managed that easily; it was a sort of mutual understanding of each other that allowed them to hang out and occasionally raise hell when the stars aligned in such a way, as they had the night before, and to tacitly ignore certain issues on which they were destined to oppose one another.

At least, this was how it was supposed to work in theory; how it was supposed to work according to The Rules in Blaise's Mind.

In reality, Draco was devious and malicious, immature, too clever, and able to charm the fangs off a viper if he ever stopped being a bastard long enough to try. He didn't follow the rules he knew of, let alone the one's in Blaise Zabini's head, which was the reason, why things like the previous night happened, the reason why Draco hadn't had to fend for himself, because somehow if Draco didn't follow Blaise's rules, then Blaise couldn't either.

It was the reason Blaise had avoided talking about the previous night as best he could, considering the situation – a situation Draco seemed to have conveniently forgotten. It was the reason why he put up with things like last night, and today, and every other stupid, nasty thing Draco did. Draco didn't follow any of The Rules, and no matter how ugly a situation had the potential to be, it was still _interesting_, because if Draco was involved, it was bound to be interesting.

It was the reason Blaise was still sitting with Pansy, waiting for Draco to get back from a clearly deserved reprimand, even though Blaise didn't even _like_ the other boy very much at the moment.

The Rules didn't apply to Draco Malfoy, even if The Rules didn't realize it. Draco would keep bending, twisting, and breaking them to his own advantage until the whole world worked like he wanted it to.

Or he died trying.

Sometimes Blaise really did wish the latter would happen. Like now, as he sat staring at the interesting crack in the ceiling.

"So you aren't even trying out?" Pansy asked, nudging him in the thigh with her foot, which was really insanely annoying when it was done more than once. Blaise was tempted to hex her sock if she did it again.

"No, I'm not, so stop askin'. I. Don't. Play. Quidditch." He lifted his head from the back of the sofa and looked over at the girl, who lay sprawled on the remaining space on the cushions. She nudged him with her foot again.

"Mustn't ruin your spotless image? Is that it?" she asked, her lower lip pushed out childishly.

"You just want to see me in those obscene Quidditch flannels," he shot back, playful suspicion in his voice. Pansy laughed, and wrinkled her pug nose in mock disgust, kicking him lightly in the thigh. _One more time she does that,_ he thought, _and the wrath of heaven will rain down on her stupid knee sock._

"You? You don't nearly have the arse for those pants," Pansy stated in a tone that made it clear she'd done a lot of observing. Her nose wrinkled again, and Blaise found himself thinking it didn't help that her nose was already rather hopeless without her scrunching it that way. "Anyway," Pansy continued, " you'd be hopeless at Quidditch, pants or no." A malicious smile started on her face. She'd picked that grin up from Draco, and she was good at it. It made her look different, and there was something about the expression Blaise liked, seeing it on her face.

Pansy tended to follow The Rules. She was easy to understand, which was part of why Blaise liked her. She said what she meant, and it always made some sort of sense. It was the kind of sense you might not always like, but it was solid, often wicked and always direct.

"Since when have you ever seen me play Quidditch, with or without pants?" he asked, knowing all the ways his words could be taken wrong. Pansy raised a suggestive eyebrow, but didn't rise to the bait. Too easy for a woman of her skill, who could find dirty meaning in an empty eggcup.

"I understand why, though. Really I do. Fear of heights really is an unfortunate thing," she said, ignoring the last comment. "Not even an interesting fear like being buried alive or McGonagall in her knickers." At this, she wiggled her toes within her sock. Blaise shivered at the sudden metal image of the Gryffindor head in a tartan teddy. He felt the sudden, burning need to wash out his brain.

"I have a healthy fear of both of those things. I'm _not_ afraid of heights, I just – Parkinson, if you _kick_ me again, I'm gonna –," Blaise dropped off as he caught sight of a bright blonde head passing though the entrance to the Slytherin commons.

"Ah, so the prodigal son has returned," Blaise called across the room. Draco came over to where they sat, saying nothing as Pansy moved her legs and sat up to give him a place to sit. Draco sat, and Blaise took just a second to appreciate the way he held his shoulders straight, the lines of tension about his body.

"So?" Pansy asked, her expression becoming one of concern that most likely mirrored the one Blaise would have worn if he'd allow his thoughts to show on his face, or admit to himself he was thinking along that line at all.

"That bastard Potter started this whole thing, and I'm the one who gets a reprimand. He bloody near took that new Professor's head off with his stupid jinx, and I get detention for a week!"

Blaise said nothing. He knew Draco well enough to know that the other young man didn't see his own fault in the situation. To point it out would be a personal attack, and Blaise wasn't in the mood for it. He watched instead how the other boy shook his pale hair back in that too familiar way that was almost disgustingly arrogant and at the same time oddly appealing. Like everything else about the other boy – interesting.

Pansy put a hand on Draco's shoulder, but he only shook her off. He'd been doing that more and more often. Blaise saw the half-second of angered hurt in her eyes before she sat back, her expression harder now, and resigned. "Is that all?" she asked, the thinnest film of sarcasm painted over her words in a way Blaise appreciated.

Draco missed it entirely, and turned to her, his eyebrows drawn in a silver line and his eyes churning like mercury. "Even Greg can follow conversation, Pansy, but somehow you managed to miss my entire point."

Pansy's expression hardened, and Blaise knew the exact second when the mask dropped and she made the conscious choice end her attempts at kindness.

"Sorry about that," she said softly, her eyes blazing. "Really, how _could_ I make that mistake, when clearly you didn't deserve that after putting a hole through an antique stained glass window on the first night of term? It isn't as if you were in danger of being expelled or anything like that, after all. How could I have been _so_ stupid? It's not as if you were_ caught in the bloody act._"

Pansy stood, silent as she bent to pick up her shoes, which sat on the floor next to the sofa. Without a backward glance, she headed to the girl's dorms, her short hair bouncing above her shoulders. Blaise noted that no matter how angry she was, her hips still swayed a little when she walked.

Draco hadn't watched her go. Blaise watched with off-hand interest the gentle curve of the other boy's lips as the line of his mouth twisted in anger, and wondered what Draco would say, when he realized that he didn't much care.

He stood and stretched languorously, reveling in the feeling of his spine cracking loudly. Draco glanced up at him, his eyes only half-guarded, and for the first time in a long while, Blaise truly looked into the other boy's eyes. A glimmer of something was present, and Blaise held his cloud-grey gaze for several seconds.

The glimmer didn't reveal itself further, and staring into Draco's pale eyes wasn't worth the effort when it was clear there was nothing there for Blaise to find. There never would be, would there? A cynical smile tilted his lips as he stared down at the other boy.

"You never deserve it, do you?" he asked evenly. He didn't expect a reply.

He touched his forehead in a strange little salute.

Softly, he said, "Goodnight, Draco." They were the only words he was willing to offer him at the moment. It probably wouldn't be true days from now, or even tomorrow, but for now he had nothing else to say.

He headed to the boy's dorm and didn't once look back.

Later, when he lay in bed, he thought he heard the door to the room close, but he was asleep before he could be sure.

After all, he didn't much care.

XXX

Draco Malfoy was an utter failure at apologies.

Pansy knew this. It was likely that she understood this fact about Draco better than Draco himself, and she had accepted this fact on their first meeting, when he had told her she had an ugly nose, and a was girl besides, and he wanted nothing to do with her, then stood by her for – well, ever since really.

They had been nine, the youngest in attendance at a formal dinner, and lost in the swirls of skirts and robes as their parents and had socialized and left their children with the stern demand of perfect manners or else. Pansy had gravitated to the pale boy, seeing that he was just as bewildered as she by the awing site of so many adults talking about grown up things and expecting their children's best behavior. Though he had tried to hide it in the upward tilt of his chin, he had remained standing close to his father's side, looking small and pallid and sullen and very much like he wanted to grasp tightly the folds of his father's robes. Pansy's attempt at friendship had been greeted with scorn, but her snapped reply that _his _nose was pointy and he was shorter that she, and a_ boy _besides had been greeted by angry, round-eyed shock and the eventual query about whether her parents made her take Latin as well. Pansy had been the first person to ever insult Draco, and it had earned her the boy's friendship and what little trust he was willing to place in others.

And it had been that way ever since. He never apologized, because he'd never openly acknowledged his own fault in anything. Instead, he made funny, charming gestures that made it impossible for one to stay angry with him and inevitably brought you back over to his side.

It was how he operated, and Pansy had adjusted to it, learned the way he worked, and did what she could to work things to her advantage when the opportunity arose. It was a complicated dance of debts and nuances that went back too far to remember.

The way he was catching her eye at the moment as Professor McGonagall expounded needlessly on minute changes in the rules and regulations of Hogwarts was entertaining, and indulgent. His expressions were near perfect renditions of the old Scot's pinched visage as the line of her lips thinned more and more every time her eyes rested on Draco or Pansy, who quelled smiles and wore shamelessly innocent countenances whenever she looked at them directly.

It wasn't much, but Pansy knew she had been accepting this type of "apology" forever with Draco. She'd never expected more, and when she got it without trying, it was always an electric shock.

She could count on one hand the times that Draco focused that haughty, radiant energy on her and her alone with purpose, and it had been much like staring at the sun. It dazzled and blinded you, and if you weren't careful, it hurt.

A Christmas present of the griffin's talon in their second year that she had coveted since their first.

The Yule ball in their fourth year when she had kissed him squarely on the mouth after a night of dancing close and nervous smiles, and had been rewarded with a flush that had burned on his cheeks like fire and another awkward kiss by the stairs to the dungeons.

A number of Hogsmeade trips the previous year, one that had ended in a fumbling tangle of awkward hands and legs and nervous, shivering sighs that seemed absurd and foreign coming from their own lips, but couldn't be helped in the midst of this new strangeness. Hands and mouths had learned curves and angles with clumsy ungraceful urgency, and to this moment, every second of that first time was burned into Pansy's memory.

A day during the end of the Easter holidays, a frown on his face as they had sat side by side on a couch in the common room, the words "just friends" said aloud in place of the things that ran through their heads like "too deep too fast" and "mind's always elsewhere".

Pansy wished she could say she wouldn't put up with it, that she was tired of all of the madness that seemed to follow Draco wherever he went like a cloud of acrid smoke or thickest fog, but in the middle of all of it was Draco himself, who was worth the insanity, worth it to her because in his own way he let her know she was worth it to him. They didn't mean _that_ to one another anymore, but they meant _something_.

In her mind she kept a mental tally of the other girls Draco had been serious about since their – whatever it was the year before. Not a one had lasted more than a few weeks or so, and often less. Of those, she doubted that more than perhaps one had found herself beneath him, despite the wild rumors and speculations Draco did nothing to discourage. He'd flirted shamelessly with practically anything that moved the previous year, and though he'd spent an inordinate amount of time sulking as of late, she doubted that this year would change that pattern.

Not once had he turned that blinding, radiant attention on another specific girl. Pansy knew she couldn't have him the way she had for that shining span of time months ago, but no one else had either, and at the moment, that was enough for her.

McGonagall had ended her speech and the prefects began to file out of the room. Draco caught Pansy's elbow, pulling her close to him and tossing a casual arm around her waist. Seeing the way that a few of the other prefects eyed them, she leaned in closer, her arm going around his slim hips. She didn't think about the times those hips had been cradled lovingly against her own because she wasn't the sentimental type.

"Now that that's over," he sighed in the long-suffering manner of one who had just been released from the stocks or had slaved for thankless years. Pansy rolled her eyes, still clinging to that last thread of wariness that remained after the previous nights conversation. Draco pulled her closer, running a hand through his hair and sneering at her.

"You know you love it, the glory that is me. Admit it, wench." The sneer was still in his voice, but there was no edge to it, no sharp side meant to sting.

"You have no idea what you're talking about, you utter nancy." But he was smirking now, and she rolled her eyes at him, knowing this had become the elaborate route that would lead to normality's return to their relationship, or whatever you were supposed to call the twisted, slightly wrong, at times brilliant thing it was that they shared.

For now, it was enough for her. It always had been.

XXX

Hermione had never thought to notice it before, but Harry's hair hadn't been cut in a very long time. Harry never paid it any mind, she was sure, and it was for this reason she never gave it any thought. After all, he was Harry – his messy hair was a constant in the same way that her eyes were brown and Ron's sleeves never entirely covered his wrists.

Hermione thought it had something to do with vanity. Harry was unable to comprehend the idea of making any kind of change to his appearance for solely aesthetic reasons. She'd asked him once, near the end their fourth year, why he still wore glasses. The charms used to correct vision weren't all that difficult to master with practice, and she'd offered to help. Harry's brows had drawn together when he had looked at her, as if he were confused, and he had shrugged. "It isn't really important." Hermione had come to realize that Harry's mind would always be focused on what was "more important", without exception, which somehow seemed more unnerving than admirable. He looked at the big picture, the ultimate goal, and that meant the little things got left behind in the process.

That was Harry. It was never about the little things for him. She doubted there had ever been a time in his life when it had been. At least that he could remember.

Hermione knew a little of what Harry's Muggle family was like from off-hand comments he had made and one halting conversation that neither of the two had ever mentioned again. Hermione had always known somewhere in the dark, semi-subconscious part of her mind that apart from perhaps one or two others, she was in possession of more details about Harry's home life than anyone save Harry himself. The fact that she knew only a fraction of it stirred up an agitated tension in her, making her want both to hug Harry quite severely and edge away from him slowly. So instead she put these things out of her head and went back to noticing that Harry's hair was now so long it covered the back of his collar and curled behind his ears, a thicket of dark tangles. It was so unique, as if it had a life all its own that allowed it to defy any attempts to tame it on Harry or anyone else's part.

Ron's hair was the opposite – bright, neat, and short. Under the clear blue of the enchanted ceiling, the great hall was open and bright with morning light. Ron's freckles stood out on his nose and over his cheeks. Hermione watched him for a full thirty seconds before he felt her eyes on him and looked up, making her realize she was staring. He smiled and at her, slightly embarrassed before going back to his conversation with Seamus and Dean.

Seamus was a likeable boy. Hermione had to admit to herself that of all of her housemates in her own year, she was least familiar with Seamus. His blue eyes and sandy hair were pleasant, but unremarkable. Still he was another constant; it was hard not to imagine him like he was now, sitting next to Dean, laughing. It was funny, how close those two were. If she didn't know otherwise, she would swear he and Dean had grown up together.

Dean was interesting. Apart from Ron, Harry, and maybe Ginny, Hermione considered him to be one of her closest friends, though in truth it was more by default than anything. The two took Ancient Runes and Arithmancy together, nearly always working together in two courses dominated by Ravenclaws and Slytherins. Dean was good natured and funny, and his guileless attitude toward the world made him easy to talk to. She had to admit that Ginny was a lucky girl – Dean was more than easy on the eyes. He was tall and well built, with tight dark curls and an easy smile. It was nigh impossible to dislike the boy. He got along with everyone. Hermione had been shocked one afternoon when walking into Ancient Runes she had found Draco Malfoy sitting in her usual seat talking with Dean about something in the Gryffindor boy's sketchbook.

Draco Malfoy. There was one who had no problem with vanity. Hermione had couldn't understand how Dean had managed to put up with the other young man. She couldn't see how anyone managed really. He was arrogant and sarcastic; everything about him seemed to express a sort of disdain for his surroundings. And for some reason, he was disgustingly well liked among his housemates and a number of students outside of Gryffindor house. Rumor and truth had become inseparably tangled to produce a long and very colorful catalog of the Slytherin's escapades, many which one would expect to create widespread hatred among his fellow students. Strangely, it had the inverse effect. At the moment he was seated between that pug-nosed cow Pansy Parkinson and Daphne Greengrass, both of whom were rumored to have numbered among the past members of Malfoy's little harem.

Hermione supposed it made sense on some level – Hitler had been popular with women as well. Perhaps the evil bastard gene gave off some sort of sex pheromone.

It still didn't explain why someone hadn't murdered him by now.

It wasn't just that he was bigoted, immature, and a hypocrite – though those were all more than enough to make Hermione's teeth begin to grind on their own accord. It was that he was so convinced that he could do no wrong, that everything he said was the full truth of any matter.

The fact that he was intelligent enough to be a rival for Hermione had very little to do with it, all things considered.

Having to see his pointy face in every class she took did take its toll.

NEWT level classes were smaller than most classes, and consisted of students from all four houses without exception. For the most part, Hermione enjoyed this detail of her schedule. Granted, she saw Harry and Ron for fewer hours in the day, though if she admitted it to herself, she wasn't as upset as she might have been. The course work she was being given was challenging and interesting, and for once, it seemed she was learning things she would use, important things that would be useful when she left Hogwarts, Apparition Card in hand, a shiny new member of the adult magical community.

This didn't make up for the fact that Malfoy was constantly and condescendingly present. She was still upset with him in an abstract sort of way over what had happened outside the Great Hall the first night of term, though she really had no reason to be, considering that the altercation hadn't been entirely one sided and it hadn't involved her. Still, she had plenty of good reasons to dislike Malfoy, and all of them came to the surface all too easily every time she heard him answered a question in that bored drawl of his or saw him smirk cynically, as if he knew something about the world that the rest of his unfortunate classmates were just too stupid to see.

The funny thing was that that was all Malfoy seemed to be doing. He still made snide remarks, still acted like the racist, snobbish bastard that he was, but he never went so far as he had during their earlier years. He held himself in check, allowing opportunities to positively blast people slip by with only a glare and a snide remark.

Maybe he'd done a little growing up over the summer. God knew everyone else in the world had. Lucius Malfoy was in Azkaban now; surely not having daddy around to save him had put things into a new perspective for Malfoy. Then again this was Malfoy; it was very likely he was simply waiting till he'd recruited enough minions to create a living wall around himself when he pissed someone of enough to take a swing at him.

Hermione snapped her attention back to the Gryffindor table. She realized with a start she'd been staring at the ferret-faced prat for the last five minutes without intermission. Harry was looking at her with a questioning look on his face. She shrugged, and went back to her Transfiguration book, which was propped against the jug of pumpkin juice before her. She never did manage to find her place, though, for the air was filled with owls as the post was delivered. A large Ural owl dropped a letter in front of Ron, who glanced at the address before calling Ginny over to share the letter their parents had sent them, telling their youngest children of their return to the Burrow from Romania.

Hermione almost missed the letter that was dropped before Harry by an unfamiliar barn owl. Harry stared at the front of the envelope for a moment, and then tucked it into the pocket of his robes unopened. Hermione was ready to ask him about the letter, but Charms began in ten minutes, and by the time she, Harry and Ron had made their way to Professor Flitwick's classroom, it was forgotten. By the end of Charms, Hermione was already thinking ahead to Care of Magical Creatures, which turned out to be a surprisingly informative lesson on the detection and extermination of Ashwinders, and by the time lunch had rolled around, Hermione had forgotten completely.

She hadn't meant to, it was only that Harry's mood had improved as the afternoon went on, and Hermione knew better than to take it for granted that her friend wasn't depressed or angry or apathetic at the moment, so she went to Arithmancy feeling good, and didn't even allow it to bother her that Blaise Zabini's "Hey Baby, Let's Make Our Own Quidditch Team" t-shirt, no matter how disturbing the thought was, though she was secretly pleased when Professor Vector gave him detention for dress code violation.

Her good mood lasted all the way to Defense Against the Dark Arts. The sixth years filed into Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom quickly, anxious to see who—or what--their new teacher was. After a werewolf, a fraud, a high inquisitor, and two servants of The Dark Lord, there were few ways left to surprise the students. The Gryffindors took their seats, Hermione seating herself with Harry on her left and Ron sitting on her other side. The bell rang, signaling that class was to begin, but the Professor was absent.

Minutes passed.

Ron leaned across Hermione's desk, a grin on his face.

"What're your bets? A harpy? Perhaps a zombie this time?"

"Ron, a zombie could never teach a class," Hermione stated with a vague air of annoyance. "They lack the ability to think. Besides," she added, thinking of the great number of B-grade Muggle films she had seen on the subject, "they'd be too busy trying to eat out our vital organs to prepare lessons."

Harry wrinkled his nose at the idea. "You saw that woman who was sitting at the High table," he said. "She's it."

"Her?" Ron asked incredulously. "She can't be. She's… well…"

"Too normal?" Harry said. "You're right. What person in their right mind would want the position?"

"You know, " Ron said. "Taking the job is a bit like saying 'Plan my funeral now' isn't it?"

"Well, we won't know anything until class starts, now will we? Professor Dumbledore hired her, so she can't be that terrible."

"He hired Crouch, didn't he?" Harry said darkly, unforgiven transgressions shining like emeralds in his eyes.

"Who he _thought_ was Moody," Hermione countered. "He also hired Professor Lupin, and he was the best teacher we've had."

Hermione couldn't place why, but she felt the need to defend their new instructor. Maybe she was being to fair minded about this.

Their conversation ceased as the door to the classroom opened and the young witch from the high table entered. She wore cat glasses with steel-colored frames that she straightened one handed while shifting a stack of heavy-looking volumes to the opposite arm. Setting the books down on her desk in a neat pile, she turned to the class and smiled.

"Sorry about being tardy on your first day of class," she said good-naturedly, taking her wand from a fold of her robes. "You're my NEWT sixth year class, correct?"

A few nods and murmurs of agreement.

"You'll be up to the difficult stuff, then won't you?" She checked the clock on the wall, and frowned slightly. "It looks like we won't have enough time to start on what I had planned for today, so I think we'll save that for the next time this class meets."

Questioning whispers and a few cocked eyebrows at this.

"Maybe she's just got no clue what she's doing," Ron whispered to Hermione in a voice that sounded half hopeful "Dumbledore wouldn't hire someone as a favor to her rich uncle, would he?"

"Of course not," Hermione hissed back. Still, the young witch was so casual she did wonder a bit.

"Seeing as I don't really have anything for you to do today, it would probably be a good idea if I learned your names. I'm Professor Viridian, by the way. And you are?" she asked, pointing her wand at the first desk in the front row.

"N-Neville Longbottom," the boy answered, nervous as usual. Professor Viridian smiled, and pointed to each student in turn. Hermione found herself wondering if perhaps Ron was right and the young teacher had little idea of how to conduct a class and was simply faking her way through.

Professor Viridian was now explaining her expectations to the class. "My plan this year with the more advanced classes—such as yourselves—is to work on active defense and also to learn a healthy amount of Dark theory."

The class was silent as the grave for a moment, before erupting into whispers.

"I see I've hit a point of interest with you," the professor said coolly.

Hermione raised her hand.

"Professor," she asked, "why would we need to learn Dark Theory? This is a defense class."

"You're right, Miss…?"

"Granger."

"Thank you, Miss Granger. True, this is a defense course. But I doubt very seriously if any of you know much more about the Dark Arts other than they're evil and should be opposed." The offhand way she said these last words did not sit well with Hermione, but the Professor continued. "However, if you have no idea what you're fighting against, how can any of your defenses be truly effective? The key to fighting the Dark Arts is understanding how they work and preventing them from working."

This made sense to Hermione in theory, but she still felt very uncomfortable with the idea of learning about the mechanics behind the Dark Arts.

"Perhaps I should explain myself better," the Professor said, her brows drawing together in thought for a moment. "Studying Dark theory is rather like examining the strategies of an opposing Quidditch team that plays a very dirty game. You don't take on their tactics, but you have a much better idea of how to work against them before you play them in a match, which makes it possible to win, no matter how dirty their game is."

A number of students nodded in hesitant understanding.

"Slytherin!" Ron said, badly disguising his exclamation with a cough, which earned a few laughs from his fellow Gryffindor and a number of hisses and snarls from the green-clad students sitting off to one side.

Professor Viridian looked directly at Ron. "Your opinions on other houses are your own, Mr. Weasley, and I respect that. However," she said, directing her word to the class as a whole, "in my class, kindly leave house rivalries at the door. They are terribly counterproductive. Also, it really will be inconvenient to spend time ending petty skirmishes, so if you have any desire to maim or severely injure any of your fellow students, do it now and be done with it." Her entire monologue was given in a sort of off-hand voice that made it seem as if she was only mildly perturbed by the longstanding rivalries between the houses, as if it were no more than a quarrel between small children.

Still, it seemed to Hermione that there was some underlying quality to her words that made it crystal clear that the young professor would tolerate very little in her class.

Viridian cast her gaze over the class, then sat down on the edge of her desk. She glanced again up at the clock.

"Well, we seem to have a few minutes left, so I guess if you have any other questions, I'm more than willing to answer them."

The entire class seemed unsure of how to conduct themselves. The Hufflepuffs seemed intimidated by Viridian's forthright manner, while the Ravenclaws looked as if their academic interests had been piqued. Most of Hermione's own housemates seemed incredulous, but most surprising were the reaction of the Slytherins. They seemed wary, more as if they didn't _want_ to trust this new instructor than actually _distrusting_ her. Then again, they really didn't trust anyone but Snape, did they? And the professor's open manner of speaking made it unlikely that she would be very Snape-like in nature. Hermione did a perfunctory check of the cleanliness of the professor's hair, just to be sure. The lack of grease confirmed her assumptions.

A hand went up.

"Yes, Mr. – ,"

"Malfoy," came the reply, the inquisitiveness in the Slytherin's voice outweighing the sneer. "What are the course aims for this term?"

"This term focuses on active defense and history," The professor replied without missing a beat. "We'll start on in-depth theory work after Christmas, so for now, I want you all to be acquainted with the basic roots of active defense. And in preparation for this terms work," she was addressing the class now, "I'd like you to read the first three chapters in your books for our next class together. I want you to be familiar with the material before we use it."

Mutterings of protest met her words. Viridian glanced up at the clock.

"I'll allow you the rest of the class to get started." At that, she moved to sit at the chair behind her desk, adjusting her glasses before carefully taking the topmost book off the pile she had brought with her into the room and opening it to a page that had been marked previously.

Hermione opened her book, taking out her quill and ink to take notes as she read. She'd need them – the first three chapters in their textbook totaled fifty-seven pages, and the information was dense. Hermione had skimmed the first two chapters when she'd purchased the volume, so she knew for a fact that this was not light reading. Settling into her seat, she began to read.

She almost jumped out of her skin when the bell rang at the end of class. She, Ron, and Harry had begun to pack their things when Viridian called out over the noise of departing students.

"Mr. Malfoy, Mr. Potter, if you would stay after for a moment?"

Ron and Hermione turned to Harry, whose face had become visibly changed by anger, his mouth a firmer line. He shrugged at his friends' quizzical looks, putting his books into his bag and eyeing Malfoy, who was carefully rolling the parchment he had taken notes on and placing it into his bag as if he hadn't heard

"You two go ahead to dinner," said Harry, reluctantly taking up his bag.

Hermione looked at Ron, and they both seemed to shrug without moving or saying a word. For once, they were both utterly clueless. They left the classroom, standing outside the classroom. After a minute or so, Harry stepped out of the classroom. The three didn't wait for Malfoy to appear as they made their way down to the Great Hall.

"Well?" Ron asked, picking up – as Hermione had – on the neutral expression on Harry's face.

"It was weird." Harry shrugged halfway, sitting down at the Gryffindor table. "She apologized to me and Malfoy for "the way she handled our actions" after the feast. Said she'd had no reason to use the language she'd used or something like that, and hoped we would get on better in the future, since we're both such 'promising students'. Pass the potatoes?"

Neither Ron nor Hermione could come up with a single thing to say to his words.

XXX

Hermione collapsed onto the sofa next to the fireplace, happy that the day was over. The first week of classes had been a welcome relief, putting her mind on logical, important things like the Arithmantic equations for abstract Numerology and the uses of hellebore and –

"You really are too happy that the holidays are over. That expression of academic bliss is kind of scary, Hermione," said a voice behind her. Hermione turned to see Ginny dropping into the armchair next to her. "Don't deny it, I saw the look you had on your face."

"There's nothing wrong with being focused on one's studies," Hermione replied with a sniff. Ginny let out a cough that sounded suspiciously like the word "unbalanced" before casting a bright smile at Hermione.

"How am I unbalanced? This year and next year are the most important in my educational career," Hermione stated primly, ready to go into a lengthy speech.

"Which is true," Ginny said thoughtfully, "but that was more in reference to your taste in boyfriends."

Hermione stared at the red haired girl, eyes narrowed. "How did you find out about that?"

"That goofy happy look my brother had on his face and the staring at you all through dinner gave it away pretty well." Ginny grinned at the look of dawning distress on Hermione's face. "Though overhearing Ron and Harry talking as I left the hall might also have been a tiny sort of tip."

"But we're not—at least I didn't think—,"

"Don't say you don't want it," Ginny said somewhat warningly. "I remember all the ranting you did around the Yule Ball, and last year when you were so sure you were doomed to be unnoticed forever. It just took him a bloody long time to realize is all." The way Ginny spoke made Hermione remember that Ginny had been head-over-heels for Harry for a long time and that she hadn't been lucky enough to have him reciprocate. Hermione had no room to complain when she thought about it.

Feeling suddenly uncomfortable, Hermione changed the subject. "Where are Ron and Harry anyway?" She had wanted to talk to both of them, but she hadn't seen them when they left the Hall after dinner. She and Ron had fewer classes together than the previous year, and though Harry and she still shared many of the same courses, he always seemed as though he were… somewhere else. Not that that was unusual as of late, but likewise it didn't make Hermione feel better about it.

"They had to stay behind. Katie wanted to talk to them about tryouts for Quidditch." Ginny stretched her arms over her head, stifling a yawn.

"Why didn't _you_ stay?" Hermione asked, noticing the slightly lascivious curl to the girl's lips as she smiled.

"I talked to her before dinner. Anyway, I came back because I told Dean I'd meet him here. Not that the boy has any sense of time." The irritation in the other girl's voice was false, and the way she rolled her eyes was more affectionate than annoyed. Hermione looked at Ginny pointedly, but the other girl merely flashed a lopsided grin at her. It reminded Hermione of Ron, that goofy-happy look. Somehow, both Ginny and Ron managed to look profoundly embarrassed even when they were unspeakably happy. Hermione wasn't sure if she found this endearing or not.

The portrait hole opened again, admitting a couple of third years and Dean Thomas, who smiled easily as he walked over to where Hermione and Ginny were sitting. The two left the common room, hands linked and smiles touching their lips. Hermione might have let herself fall into thought about this, but the door to the common room opened to admit Ron and Harry. Lamenting the luxury of taking up the entire couch, she moved to make space for the two. Harry sat down, taking his glasses to clean them on the tail of his shirt. Ron dropped onto the cushion next to her.

"For someone who's only 5'2", Katie Bell can be a very frightening woman," Ron said to the ceiling. Do you know, she actually told me she would beat me with my broomstick if I didn't put a better show than last season?"

Hermione cocked an eyebrow at him and glanced over at Harry. The dark headed boy pushed his glasses up his nose with his index finger, crossing his eyes. Hermione smiled, amused as Ron did not notice Harry's miming of bludgeoning the red haired boy to death. She barely stifled her laughter as Ron turned to her.

"It isn't funny, Hermione," Ron said, not seeing as Harry proceed to demonstrate Katie's popping the keeper's head off and hitting it with a Beater's bat. "She's mental! You were there Harry," he said, sitting forward and looking over at his friend, who was in the middle of a lively rendition of the Quidditch captain's technique for popping a player's eyes like grapes.

"She seemed perfectly fine to me," Harry said, feigning innocence. "She just wants to win. Besides, Jack Sloper is the one she put the fear of God into." Hermione's eyebrows rose. "Threatened to mount bits of him over the mantle of the fire when he complained about practices starting next week. If she doesn't either kick him off the team or take his ability to have children, it'll be a miracle." Harry yawned, stretching as he stood up. "It'll be fine, Ron," he said, heading toward the boys' side of the tower. "Just keep a tight hold on your broom while she's around."

With a devious grin on his face, Harry mounted the stair, calling "G'night" over his shoulder. Ron and Hermione sat in silence, looks of utter disturbance on their faces. Ron turned to look at Hermione, a look of wariness on his face as his ears reddened considerably.

"Did he just…" he trailed off, unable to put the ideas of "Harry" and "dirty, shameless innuendo" into the same sentence.

Hermione kept her mouth shut, as she was having trouble not giggling like a first year at the word "broomstick". _Must not think that way_, she scolded herself,_ this is Ron!_

For a long while, they said nothing, watching as the portrait hole opened and shut from time to time or staring into the fire.

"So what did you think of Professor Viridian?" she asked at length, attempting to puncture the awkward silence that was rapidly expanding between and around them.

"All that stuff about Dark Theory – you'd think she's trying to teach us Dark Arts." Hermione could hear the years of being told the evils of the Dark Arts in Ron's voice. She could also see how close his hand was to hers on the sofa cushion. Feeling suddenly brave and curious, she closed the space. Ron went quiet, and their hands – rather clumsily – explored one another, finally sliding together.

They were looking at each other by now, and suddenly it seemed terribly logical for Hermione to tilt her head to the side, and for Ron to lean forward, and for their mouths to touch like this. Hermione didn't pull away. The two hadn't discussed what had taken place the week before in Diagon Alley, and there had been no repetition of the scene. The two had been eyeing one another shyly across the table and blushing from time to time, but it had stopped there.

Nothing so direct as linked hands being squeezed slightly as lips met and Ron's tongue pushed between Hermione's and teeth clicking just slightly in a minutely flawed attempt to deepen the kiss. There was a hand resting on her thigh that seemed to be out of place, sort of resting there uncomfortably as if waiting for a bus, now and then circling cautiously as lips slid and pressed in odd patterns.

"Well done, Ron!" came a call from the other side of the dorm, causing Ron and Hermione to snap apart and jump to their feet. Seamus was standing in his pyjamas on the stairs, grinning at the two of them. Ron's ears looked to be on fire, and Hermione was sure her cheeks bore a striking resemblance.

"Shut up Finnigan!" Ron barked at him. Seamus quickly picked up a roll of parchment from a chair near the window and darted back to the boys' dorm, aiming a wink at Ron from the doorway.

From there, things became a rush of awkward goodnights and quick exits. Hermione made her way to the room she shared with Lavender, Parvati, and Katie, pulling out her pyjamas and quickly putting them on as her mind turned over this second kiss repeatedly and compared and contrasted it with the first. Again, something had been missing.

This time, Hermione understood what it was.

There had been no spark. It had been like kissing her best friend, which was all it _had_ been.

Nothing more.

XXX

Narcissa had stopped reading the papers long ago. . For her own sanity, really, though anyone who had the opportunity to speak with her would never have guessed it. She saw her husband's name displayed in block type too often for her own liking.

Still, Narcissa was nothing if not obstinate, and the part of the wilting flower was not hers to play. She gave the world nothing to feed on, and retained the image of cool, aloof purity that had served her well in the past. Never once did it falter.

It was for this reason that she continued to receive owls from publications, begging for an interview, a statement, any scrap that would be thrown to them.

The whole world wanted a piece of the Malfoy family, now that it was shattered and defamed. Narcissa refused to oblige them. She knew how she appeared; cold, heartless, and unapologetic. In the eyes of many, she was just as guilty Lucius.

Narcissa agreed, and found that this did not affect her in the slightest. She did not regret for one second any decision she had made in regards to her family She had chosen to protect and support the name of Black and that of Malfoy. They were the threads that held her very being together, and they shot through to her core. She was proud of what she was, as she always had been.

Blood had always been most important to Narcissa. It's purity, to be sure, but blood itself, the bonds represented by it and those it linked her to.

Malfoy and Black; the names and all they represented were woven inextricably into the fiber of her soul. To the end, she would honor them above all else.

It was for this reason she had stepped aside, said little in the way of protest when it had become apparent that the Dark Lord 's servants were returning to him. She had said nothing the night she had watched her husband polish with infinite care the silver mask that had been locked away from the world all those years ago, for what Narcissa had thought would be forever.

It was for this reason that she had paid her respects to Sirius Alexander Black, the last male heir of what had once been the greatest of families. Putting aside years of disapproval and resentment toward him and the choices he had made, the life he'd chosen to lead, she'd allowed herself for perhaps just a moment to call him "cousin" under her breath and recall dusty memories of daisy chains and pulling braids. Surrounded by strangers though she had been, she had more a right to lament his loss, and she had done so. It didn't matter that the only other bearers of that once-honored name would never come to understand its gravity.

It was the reason she had sat erect and dry-eyed, and watched as her husband, the father of her child, her lover, was sentenced to a life spent rotting away in a cage for acts she had done nothing to prevent him committing, though some piece of her accepted long ago that she would lose him to them.

It was the reason that her son had had to witness his father be taken from him as the world watched and knew that this was the last time she would let anything be taken from her or her child.

It was the reason that all the madness, the suffering, would stop there. Lucius had left her to stand at his master's side, and there he would remain. He had made his choice, and Narcissa had done all she could for him. He was gone from her now. Tears and confessions had no power to saw through iron bars.

Narcissa had left Lucius behind her the moment she had walked out of the ministry courtroom. The verdict had been given, the sentence given, and nothing was left to be said. To anyone.

Narcissa sat before the fire in her husband's office, dropping unopened envelopes into the flames one at a time, half mesmerized by the way the flames slowly ate the

They were stupid to ask her for anything. She had one thing of value to her name, and no force in heaven or hell could take away from her the only thing left for her to fight for.

No force in heaven or hell could match the resolve that resided in Narcissa Adehara Black Malfoy. In the face of such purity of emotion, nothing could stand.

_Tojour Pur_…

For Narcissa at least, it always had been and ever would be true.

Taking out a quill and a sheet of parchment, she wrote in neat, spidery script:

_Draco, my son…_

XXX

_They would be tested… they had failed him once, but never again. He would test their loyalty, their strength…_

…_their thirst for power…_

…_for blood…_

_This would be the final forging, the refiner's fire with the greatest heat. _

_And with his most powerful weapon, he would enter battle…_

_High, maddened laughter rent the air._

Harry Potter woke sweat-damp and struggling to gulp in breath. Frenzied afterimages played over and again in his head like silent movies, blurred and dark, and his head felt fit to split in two.

A small, logical part of his mind repeated over and over that he was safe here at Hogwarts, that nothing could get him. The rest of his mind, which remained unconvinced, drowned it out with a repeated cry that no place was safe while Voldemort still existed. No place on earth, and nothing would be left if he failed.

And a tiny part of Harry's mind childishly shivered and wailed that even his dreams weren't his. No one was left to care about him; with no place to run to, even sleep was not his to control.

Harry did then something he hadn't done as long as he remembered.

He did not scream or rage, or silently block his feelings off. He did not tell himself he was not afraid, or crush down his fears and forge ahead.

Harry James Potter curled onto his side, a small gasp escaping his lips like the breath of a dying man before the dam broke, and when one or two stubborn, wayward tears slid over the bridge of his nose and down onto the pillow he didn't wipe them away. For once, he simply gave in to the crushing feeling of desolation and didn't try to stop it.

What point was there to even attempt it, when his world had already come down around him?

When Ron pulled the curtains of his bed the next morning to try for the third time to wake Harry, and found him curled tightly on his side, his shoulders hunched as if expecting a blow, he closed the curtains again, leaving Harry to what little rest he could find in unconsciousness.

XXX

Draco woke early, for the first time in weeks feeling good. His detention with Professor Snape the night before had been the last he had to serve, and he had spent the evening setting up the materials need by the professor's classes for the following day, something he had done the previous year as Snape's assistant.

It was Saturday morning. There was Quidditch practice in the afternoon, but the majority of Draco's day was free. Taking his time, he made his way to the prefects bathroom and filled the enormous tub in the center of the room, allowing himself the luxury of squandering unholy amounts of ice-white foam and thinking fondly on the crushed expressions of those who would be deprived of it. He even took the time to condition properly, something he never really had enough time for. He only left the bath when his fingers were in danger of wrinkling.

Stepping out of the bath, he wrapped one of the deliciously soft towels around his waist and took another to dry his hair. Standing in front of the mirror, he regarded his reflection with a critical eye.

His hair was falling over his forehead; quickly, he combed it back for the moment. Wondering why in the name of all things holy he had ever slicked his hair back like this. It made his face look even pointier than it was. Not that it was that pointy. Angular really, it was angular. Thankfully, he wasn't so damnably short as he had once been, though he still held a small grudge against the Weasel, who was vertically gifted to the point of absurdity. At least _he_ wasn't so very liberally freckled.

Resisting the urge to flex before the mirror, Draco dried his hair fully and combed it neatly before dressing and heading down to the Great Hall.

Pansy was chatting with Millicent Bulstrode, the two laughing at something or other. Greg and Vince were seated side by side, as always, Vince's eyes traveling to Pansy now and then in a manner Draco found amusing – in the unlikely event that Pansy ever gave Vince the time of day; she'd eat him alive. Blaise was nowhere to be found, but it was Saturday, after all, so Draco didn't wonder. He sat down across from Pansy, his eyes traveling across the hall out of habit to sneer at stupid Potter, but the idiot Gryffindor wasn't there, so he set about buttering a slice of toast and snatching up a few slices of bacon before they were fallen upon by his carnivorous housemates.

His breakfast bliss was interrupted by the sound of boots crashing frantically against the floor. Blaise Zabini came skidding to a halt behind Pansy.

"We gotta go_ now_," he said, breathless. A copy of the most Recent issue of the Daily Prophet was clutched in his hand, the knuckles shining over rumpled pages. "C'mon, I'm not jokin'," he said, looking Draco directly in the eye. The urgency in his gaze was enough to make Draco take a second look at Blaise, whose hair was still wet from the shower, the hem of his shirt half in, half out of his trousers. Pansy looked from Blaise to Draco incredulously, then got to her feet, as did Draco, following Blaise out of the hall. A number of eyes followed them, not only those of students, but a few belonging to quizzical professors.

Blaise was standing under one of the high windows outside the hall when the other two reached him. Well, not standing really, Draco noticed, but shifting his weight a good deal and looking very agitated.

"What was _that_ all about?" Pansy asked, stepping close beside Blaise. Their shoulders brushed as he unfurled the paper, displaying it for the two of them to see.

Draco read the headline again and again, but the clashing roar in his head drowned out everything by the continuous screaming of a voice that repeated over and over every word to all of his nightmares.

XXX

Lyrics—_Do You Feel Loved_ by U2

"Rock the Casbah" by The Clash

XXX

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